


i'm waiting for it, that green light (i want it)

by lacecat



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bank Robbery, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, On the Run
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:32:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18612007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacecat/pseuds/lacecat
Summary: The drawer springs open, and he gazes upon a twisted piece of material. Michael picks it up, and the material morphs in his hands, taking on a sheen like nothing else on this planet.Symbols and letters flash across the surface, but he doesn’t bother reading it now - that will come later, when they’re far away from the soon-to-be-empty bank vault.There’s a low click, and Michael goes still on reflex. “Baby,” he says then, “Is that you?”“Don’t call me baby,” Alex Manes orders, stepping into the vault. “Hands where I can see them, Guerin.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> guess who's back still living that au life!!!!  
> i'm @villanellve on tumblr
> 
> edit: shoutout to mich @vlamito for reading this nonsense and being the best!!!!!!! and also getting me into this cursed show <3 <3 <3 <3

“Just like we planned,” Michael says. He shifts in his seat. “Anyone else feeling like we should be listening to some power ballads right now?”

 

“We’re about to rob a bank,” Max says from the front seat, sounding pained. “Can you sound a little less relaxed about it _?”_

 

“What? We’re good people,” Michael says. “‘People’ used loosely here, of course.”

 

“ _Michael_.”

 

“‘Good’ is a stretch,” Isobel mutters, but she looks much more resolute than Max. Which is part of the reason why she’s the one that goes into the bank with him, powers aside. “Are you ready?”

 

“Ready enough,” Max says, and he gives them a terse nod. “Eight minutes.”

 

“See you in eight,” Michael says, as Isobel takes a last swig of the acetone, then hands it to him to empty the bottle.

 

They shoulder the bags, and he opens the sliding door of the van.

 

The alley next to the bank is empty like they knew it would be. Michael focuses on the side door, and the lock disengages easily. He holds the door so Isobel can stride in first. The security cameras are first - he pops off the lenses so that the images are distorted, easy enough and less energy than crumpling them up.

 

Isobel’s fists tighten at her sides, and the two security guards at the far end of the hall put their hands up over their heads, turn until their noses are up against the wall, their guns useless at their hips. Another second, another breath, and Michael has the next door swinging open so they can walk right on by them.

 

The vault is in one of the rooms to the left in the hallway, and as Isobel uses her powers to convince the bank tellers to turn their heads before they even register their presence. Their footsteps are of no interest to anyone, as Michael kneels in front of the vault door, and concentrates, as Isobel keeps the guards frozen in place.

 

Within a minute, the door is opening with a low groan. The security cameras and alarms have already been taken care of, so then it’s just a matter of going in and filling the duffle bags with cash.

 

But the cash - the cash is only a benefit. A distraction. As Isobel shoulders the bags, Michael focuses on the second, hidden vault in the back of the room - the one that holds something much less valuable to most people, and yet so incredibly priceless to those who know what it is.

 

In his mind, he sees the locking mechanism, and he finesses it until there’s a low click.

 

The drawer springs open, and he gazes upon a twisted piece of material. Michael picks it up, and the material morphs in his hands, taking on a sheen like nothing else on this planet.

 

Symbols and letters flash across the surface, but he doesn’t bother reading it now - that will come later, when they’re far away from the soon-to-be-empty bank vault.

 

There’s a low click, and Michael goes still on reflex. “Baby,” he says then, “Is that you?”

 

“Don’t call me baby,” Alex Manes orders, stepping into the vault. “Hands where I can see them, Guerin.”

 

He keeps his hands on the piece, because he knows Alex won’t really shoot him. Probably. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Did you take a nice vacation?”

 

“You keep me too busy,” Alex says grimly, and he takes a step closer. “Put your hands behind your head – “

 

“I like Martinique,” Michael says. He can hear Alex advance yet again. “Do you know I own an island?”

 

“That some kind of family inheritance you’re bragging about?”

 

“Oh, it was bought,” Michael says easily. “Remember the stint in Carlsbad? Got a neat sum for the jewels from there.”

 

“And now that goes on the growing list of crimes that I have you down for,” Alex says flatly. He’s right behind him, then, and Michael can hear his steady breathing.

 

“You can have me down for anything,” Michael drawls, and he twitches his hand. The gun flies out of Alex’s hand. As the man lets out a surprised curse, there’s a rattling sound, and Michael feels the gun tug back from something.

 

He’s connected the handgun with some kind of chain to his belt, which honestly, Michael has to give him credit for. As he turns around, Alex in the middle of retrieving his gun, and Michael – nearly lazily - concentrates again.

 

The chain breaks, the gun now flying to the other side of the room. Alex turns his furious eyes on him, and Michael neatly uses the chain to bind his hands around his wrists, then pulling them - not too hard - around to the small of his back.

 

“I have more officers on the way,” Alex hisses, jerking at his makeshift handcuffs. From behind him, silently, Isobel leans against the open vault door, eyebrow raised in question. “You’re not going to get away - “

 

“I think we’ve established now that I _am_ going to get away,” Michael says to cut him off, setting down the ship piece. Lowering his voice, he asks, “Do you want me to get Isobel to mind whammy you so you’re unconscious by the time anyone else gets here?”

 

“Damn you, Guerin,” Alex says darkly, and he looks like he’s about to lunge forward - so Michael meets Isobel’s eyes, gives her a tiny nod.

 

Isobel narrows hers, and Alex is out cold in a matter of seconds, slumping where he stands. Michael is careful to catch him, lowering him all the way to the ground with a gentle thud, before unbinding his wrists.

 

Unconscious, Alex looks as close to relaxed as Michael thinks he's ever seen him - barring in natural sleep. There's still that persistent line in his forehead, below the faint scar, that he thinks never quite goes away entirely. He resists the urge to try to smooth it out with his thumb.

 

“He’s getting tougher to convince,” Isobel says, and she's watching him closely. “If he gets to be a problem, and I can’t get into his head anymore - “

 

She trails off meaningfully. Michael lets himself glance at Alex’s closed eyes, doesn’t think about what if she’s right. “We’ll have the pieces,” he says, leaves it at that.

 

Isobel doesn’t quite sigh at him, but he can feel the exasperation radiate out from her. Michael ignores her in favor of making sure Alex’s prosthetic isn’t twisted or anything underneath his weight, before rising.

 

“Come on,” he says, picking up the piece. “Max is probably having an aneurysm out there if we’re late.”

 

 

 

\---

 

 

Less than forty seconds later, Michael steps back out into the alley with Isobel, where Max is waiting with the getaway van.

 

“We’re good,” Michael says, stepping into the back while Isobel takes the front seat. Max turns the ignition, and they’re gone with time to spare.

 

 

\---

 

 

“You ever wonder what would have happened if we’d been adopted?” Max asks them once. He’s the type to dream about the what-ifs in the past, softer than the two of them even after everything he’s gone through. He’s the heart of their trio, in many ways. “If some couple had shown up at the foster home to take us with them?”

 

“More like only two of us,” Michael says from underneath the car he’s working on. He nudges Max’s leg with his foot, and Max passes him the wrench once again. “I have a feeling that I wouldn’t be to anyone’s tastes, let alone the pick of some nice suburban couple from Albuquerque or what have you.”

 

“We would’ve found each other,” Isobel reasons from where she’s sitting across the garage, flipping through a stolen magazine. “We wouldn’t have been separated for long.”

 

If Max is the heart of the trio that keeps them together, Isobel is the mind that makes sure they’ll have a future, for which to dream and plan for. Michael is the hands - he does everything he can to make that future, that hope, a reality.

 

When they had been fifteen, the foster home had decided to split the Guerins up, send them to different homes. That very night, Michael had hot wired a car - one of the benefits of telekinesis was being able to feel an engine, know its inner workings without even seeing it - and they had escaped. Soon they were just three more kids, forgotten by the system, but they were a family - together forever.

 

It’s not like human school could teach them anything about where they came from, anyways, or how to harness their powers. Ever since they had somehow woken up in the desert outside of Roswell, they had only each other to rely on.

 

Sometimes, Michael thinks of any life, one where they had parents, or maybe they weren’t aliens after all. One where maybe he met Alex Manes in high school, or at some nerdy science conference, or even at a saccharine coffee shop – or maybe there’s a universe out there where they never met at all.

 

That, he knows, would be far worse than this one. At least he’s got that.

 

 

\---

 

 

Max’s hands jiggle on the steering wheel as he drives. They’re headed back to the warehouse where they’d been crashing since they got into town, where they’ll now regroup, change the plates, take stock of the situation.

 

For all the money that they’ve accumulated, the fact of the matter is that it’s hard to get rid of it in all one go without raising any red flags - so they sit on most of it, barring any purchasing of expensive equipment or new centers of operation. It’s tough, living a life of crime sometimes.

 

“Any complications?” Max asks, passing Isobel another bottle of acetone.

 

“Not really,” Isobel says, uncapping it and drinking deeply. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, says, “Barring the surprise appearance of Michael’s paramour.”

 

“Captain Manes?”

 

“No, the other one,” Isobel says with a scoff. “How did he show up so fast, anyways?”

 

“Alex is smart,” Michael says, staring down into his own bottle of acetone. “He probably had something flag us on a security cam in the town and happened to be the first to mobilize.”

 

Max’s eyes meet his in the rear view window as he merges onto the highway. “And the piece?”

 

Michael pats the smaller bag by his side, his own bottle of acetone half finished by now. “It looks like a console piece, I think,” he says, swaying a little with the van. “Once I run some tests on the curvature and surface tension - “

 

“We’re leaving,” Max tells him, though. “No time for tests.”

 

“What?” Isobel says, beating Michael to the punch. “It’s not like they’re going to catch us - “

 

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Max says, and Isobel once again puts her hand on his arm. They both go silent, which means whatever thought that Max has, he’s trying to show Isobel with their connection - either it’s too complicated, or too bad for words for Michael to hear right away. He’s not sure which is worse.

 

“Care to clue me in?” Michael asks sarcastically when they’re quiet for a good two minutes.

 

Isobel blinks, then turns her head fully to him. “If Manes is getting smarter about where we’re going hit up next, so are the rest of his unit,” she says. “Max wants to keep driving rather than stay at the warehouse for the night.”

 

“We’ll drop off the van, hit the road once again,” Max says firmly. “I don’t want to take the chance.”

 

He considers picking the fight. Max has no superior knowledge over the other two of them, and he’s probably just being overly cautious. It’ll be a bitch to drive like this throughout the night, too.

 

On the other hand, if he’s right – well. Michael can rationalize what Alex does for an impossibly long amount of time, but the men he’s with, his superiors? He’s not exactly a fan.

 

He just sighs, draining the rest of the acetone. “Okay,” Michael says, and predictably, Max doesn’t acknowledge his reluctant acceptance. “I get to sleep first, though.”

 

“Don’t drool on my jacket back there,” Isobel warns.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Alex wakes up with the hell of a headache, pain radiating from the base of his skull.

 

He _hates_ when Guerin’s sister gets in his head.

 

“Captain,” one of his men says, already in the middle of putting him on a backboard. Alex waves him away - he knows by now that he’s not injured in any ways - and he turns to his team who are already combing through the vault.

 

“The item is missing, sir,” one of them reports when they notice he’s awake. “Along with approximately one hundred thousand in cash.”

 

Alex closes his eyes. “How long have I been out?”

 

“It’s been eight minutes since we came upon the scene, where you were unresponsive,” the officer says. “Sixteen minutes since you sent out the alert.”

 

Eight minutes is not a lot of time, and yet he knows even if he were to shut down the highway, they would still manage to slip away.

 

Alex rubs at his eyes. “I want the security footage to comb over, see if they left anything behind,” he orders, rising to his feet, just a little unsteady. “And we’re all going to have a chat on incident response times.”

 

His men are already avoiding his gaze, and so Alex gets to his feet, heads out to the main atrium of the bank. His leg aches, but he knows better than to wistfully hope for an early day today.

 

The manager is pale-faced and sweating profusely as he watches all the soldiers tromp on through his bank. He looks at Alex, and must correctly guess he’s some kind of authority, for he says desperately to him, “It was like we just let them in – like we didn’t care – but we weren’t involved, I swear, I didn’t know them – “ “We’ll be conducting a full investigation, sir,” Alex tells him. “We just require your cooperation. My officers are managing this entire situation as we speak.”

 

The man grabs his arm, and Alex resists the instinct to throw him to the ground. “Was it those – those _aliens_ ,” he whispers under his breath, eyes darting to the side. “I heard that in that robbery in Reno, that they could control minds – is it _true_?“

 

Now he makes his expression into a bland smile. “Sir, there is no such thing as aliens,” Alex says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me – “

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Isobel had learned about the pieces entirely by accident. Michael had gotten picked up for some minor illegal betting, and when she had gone to the police station to bail him out, she had noticed some designation on his intake paperwork - some internal code, like it should be later referenced.

 

It could have been nothing, but then they had looked into it, all three a little (rightfully) paranoid. That’s how they discovered that not only did the U.S. government know about aliens, but that there were pieces of an alien ship, discovered scattered throughout the southwest.

 

Some of those pieces had ended up in the hands of private collectors - _much_ easier to steal than from some CIA black site, after all - and so they had added bank robbery to the list of crimes, tracking down the people who had dug up what was theirs, and getting it back.

 

After the first time they had robbed a bank and gotten the first piece of their ship back, they had nearly gotten caught. Isobel had misjudged the number of guards in the back vault, and Michael had been forced to use his powers to cause a large chunk of the ceiling to crash down, cutting off their pursuers.

 

It wasn’t like the news had blasted _Alien Robbers in Your Own Neighborhood_! But in the next bank they had hit up, outside of Orange County, they had had a few more security guards, and not just the mall cop kind - the government agent kind, with big military guns and much better security systems in place. They had gotten away, of course, but were forced to take a break until their trail was cold.

 

Isobel had peered into the mind of one of those agents before they had left, though. She had found out that there was indeed a government branch dedicated to stopping these new aliens from taking back what was theirs, and that they knew suspiciously too much about them. They had figured one of them was telekinetic and had guessed that the other had come kind of bodily control - no mention of a third, but they also suspected that they had helpers all over the states.

 

They had figured out where the next piece was a few months later. “Phoenix,” Isobel circles on the map. “Ready for a road trip?”

 

Phoenix had been the first place where Alex had been assigned to their case.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Maria is waiting for him when Alex gets back to the base. She gives him a once over, seemingly satisfied when he doesn’t appear injured, and then she promptly drags him into his own office.

 

“I feel like I should clarify that I am, in fact, your commanding officer,” Alex says dryly, as Maria locks the door behind him. “And subordinates don’t generally physically maneuver their COs.”

 

“Yeah, but the best friend rule overrides that,” Maria says, her back pressed to the door, “Especially when I can see that you talked to _him_ today.”

 

“I don’t know what - “

 

“Psychic,” Maria says, waggling her fingers. “I can tell these things.”

 

“If by him, you mean the alien I’m trying to arrest, then yes,” Alex says flatly. “That’s no secret. It’ll be in the report - “

 

“Alex,” Maria says, “We need to find you a boyfriend who isn’t possibly an intergalactic criminal.”

 

“Intergalactic implies multiple galaxies, and they’ve been stationed on just this one planet, as far as we know.”

 

“All right, then we need to find you a man who doesn’t make you look like _that_ even after he knocked you out in the middle of a robbery,” Maria counters, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a staggeringly low bar, Manes.”

 

He’s closest to Maria out of anyone on the entire team. Their longstanding friendship from high school aside, she’s their civilian consultant, the one that he had handpicked when he realized that if the aliens were not soldiers, that they needed someone with a civilian background to contribute to the development of artificial intelligence meant to track said quasi - intergalactic criminals.

 

Maria had been a terrifyingly good private investigator moonlighting between bartending gigs when he had recruited her. She’s also far smarter and a better read of people than most of Alex’s officers - a trait that he both values and kind of hates, like in this moment.

 

“Technically, his sister did,” Alex says. He doesn’t refute the other part of that statement - not when he still has that restless energy buzzing under his skin like anytime he gets close to Guerin.

 

He changes the subject. “How is the project going?”

 

She thankfully lets him have this one. “I bullied Wilson and Gomez this morning,” Maria says, “I think they’re finally producing some good work on the coding end that you should look over when you get a chance.”

 

“Great. Have them put it together for me.”

 

“This is when I tell you that you’re not going to be looking over it tonight, because you’re coming out to that new place on third,” Maria says. “The one you said you’d make time for?”

 

“I’m going to have to rain check,” Alex says, trying to not let the heavy sigh escape his chest. He’s going to have to meet with his father about the failure of his team today, and that’s a conversation that will put him in the kind of mood that he doesn’t want to subject Maria – or anyone, for that matter – to afterward.

 

“I’ll hold you to that,” Maria just says, turning back to the door and opening it. “Just -- what did he say this time?”

 

“He told me that he owned an island,” Alex says, resigned. Maria cackles on her way out.

 

 

 

\--- 

 

 

Six months ago in Phoenix, the night before their next target, Michael had gone out. He personally thought that getting drunk and engaging in casual sex was kind of his lucky charm, or maybe it just silenced the noise in his head so he could focus the next day when they were trying not to get shot.

 

He goes up to the bar, and there he is. Dark hair and dark eyes, the hint of a smile as Michael blatantly gives him the once over, single eyebrow just raises when Michael asks if the seat next to him is taken. “It’s yours,” the man says, in a low, nearly hypnotic timbre.

 

Michael quickly finds out that _Alex_ , as he introduces himself, no last name, has a kind of biting, acerbic wit, that he sees right through Michael’s smooth pickup lines, and he’s startling direct with what he wants, looking right at Michael’s mouth in about thirty seconds - all in all, _exactly_ his type.

 

Alex tells him that he’s in town for work - technology private sector. Michael lies and says he’s a truck driver in between jobs, as he orders them both another drink.

 

“Do you believe in destiny?” Michael asks him when Alex’s knee presses against his.

 

“No,” Alex says. “Life is chaotic and messy.”

 

Michael gives a surprised laugh. “You don’t hope that there’s some kind of meaning? Something beyond all of that, to make sense of the mess?”

 

“Maybe,” Alex says. He finishes his beer. “Or maybe we just should just focus on living in every second.”

 

When he gets up to pay his tab, the tips of his fingers run along the outside of Michael’s wrist, slow and deliberate, before he lets go.  

 

In the motel room - and Michael is _absurdly_ grateful that he had gotten a cheap room for the night, one that a truck driver might have actually picked - Alex kisses him first, hard, guiding him by his hips to the bed. Michael tangles his fingers in his hair, keeps him pulled in for another messy kiss, lips and fingers and hands dragging all over greedily.

 

When he finally reaches for Alex’s belt buckle, the other man breaks the kiss suddenly. “I have a prosthetic leg,” Alex says without preamble, drawing back - and Michael realizes he’s gauging his reaction carefully, “If that’s going to be a problem - “

 

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Michael replies, and he flips Alex’s buckle open in a smooth motion. He can’t remember the last time he’s wanted something this much, something about this man having completely keelhauled him and he can’t find it in himself to care as long as he gets his hands on Alex in the next thirty seconds. “Can I - “

 

“Yes,” Alex breathes out, and then he doesn’t say anything much more coherent once Michael drops to his knees, gets his mouth on him like he’s been dying for it his whole life.

 

 

\---

 

Alex leaves in the early morning before the sun has even risen. They hadn’t gotten much sleep, but Michael watches through a half-open eye as he rebuttals his shirt, runs a hand through his hair - and he glances back at the bed, back at Michael, who instantly closes his eyes, not wanting any potential awkward conversation to ruin the satisfaction running deep in his bones right now.

 

He thinks he might not have tricked him, though, given the quick, amused exhale. “Michael,” Alex says, or maybe Michael imagines it.

 

The next time Michael opens his eyes, he’s gone. Without his number, he knows he’s never going to see him again.

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Which is why it’s such a surprise when Michael and Isobel are in the bank the next day, and he sees those startlingly sharp eyes once again in a _very_ different kind of context.

 

Michael meets his eyes through the mask that they had taken to wearing then, and Alex glares right back at him, even though he can’t see who Michael is.

 

Technology sector, his ass. The man he’d just had mind-blowing sex with is part of the government group trying to put them all in jail - or more likely, some testing facility - and oh _god_ , what if he had seen something in Michael’s room, what if he knew who he was -

 

“You won’t get away with this,” Alex says, looking furious even as the hastily made metal cuffs - from a bar of a railing nearby - are tight on his wrists. “We’ll find you, and we’ll stop you.”

 

Beside him, Isobel narrows her eyes. It’s more difficult for her to control these agents, she’s told him, because a scared bank teller might be all too willing to look away - their fear making Isobel’s influence on their choice very easy - but people like Alex, apparently, know what they’re up against.

 

Hence the cuffs.

 

“Come on,” Isobel says, unaware of why Michael has paused. She goes onto the vault, and Michael follows her, forces himself not to look back at the other man.

 

It’s just a strange coincidence. There’s nothing to be read in the fact that he slept with a guy who’s trying to hunt them down, right?

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Only Michael sees Alex in Reno, several jobs later. He’s in a nicer bar this time, drinking a stupidly expensive beer when he hears that voice from behind him.

 

“Michael?” Michael tells himself not to turn around, feign ignorance, even as he does exactly that. And god _damn_ it, Alex looks good, like all the memories of that night, and he’s in a suit that makes Michael’s tongue want to trace a line just above the collar on his neck.

 

 _Government agent. Trying to hunt you down. Trying to hunt Isobel and Max down_ -

 

“Alex,” Michael says, after a beat, passing it off like he has to remember his name for a moment. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Hoping for a drink,” Alex says, and his eyes run down Michael. “You’re driving through?”

 

“I’m on vacation now,” Michael says, and he holds up his glass, eyes Alex in that suit once again just because he can. “You clean up nice.”

 

Alex shifts a little. “Just got out of a meeting. Didn’t think I’d see you again.” There’s something guarded in his expression, even as his eyes dip to Michael’s mouth - and god, he wants him again, knowing everything and yet still - isn’t that something?

 

Michael says, “I thought’d I’d try my luck around here.”

 

“Usually, people go to Vegas for that,” Alex tells him with a raised eyebrow. He nods to the bartender over Michael’s shoulder, loosens his tie a little. Michael is _fucked_. “And?”

 

“And what?”

 

“Are you having that kind of luck?”

 

There’s no way he could know. This is just an opportunity for a repeat of embarrassingly good sex - and after this, what’s the chance he’ll ever see him again - _again_?

 

“Oh,” Michael says, hiding any reservation under a slow grin, “I’d say my night just turned for the better.”

 

This time, they don’t even make it to either of their lodgings. In the hastily barricaded bathroom, Michael sucks a mark into the hollow of Alex’s throat as Alex jerks him off, grip tight and hot and _perfect_. Soon, both of them are shuddering into each other, Alex biting a mark in retaliation where his shoulder and neck meet as he comes.

 

After, they catch their breaths panting, both slumped against the wall. Alex meets Michael’s eye, and in a moment, they both laugh - a little awkward, but sharing in that moment.

 

Michael ruthlessly pushes down any sort of what-if, when Alex says, “What if I gave you my number?”

 

He blinks once. Alex’s cheeks are still pink. Michael gives him another slow smirk, then, maybe to hide how even as it catches him off guard, he does want that. Even though it’s probably the worst idea he’s ever had. “You in the habit of calling people after dragging them into bathrooms?”

 

“I’m busy with work most of the time,” Alex says. He adjusts his tie in the mirror, glances back at Michael. “I’m just saying, if our paths were to theoretically cross again while you’re still in Reno - “

 

“It wouldn’t be the worst,” Michael finishes, feeling his mouth tilt up. “Sure.”

 

He’s a goddamn idiot. Some part of his brain justifies it, if he knows where Alex is, then they’ll get a heads up on when to expect the government squad - and he focuses on that when Alex types in his number into his phone.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

He convinces Isobel and Max that they shouldn’t hit up this bank after all, not yet. Sometimes the places that they go to don’t have the ship pieces after all, anyways, and they can always regroup in the future once again.

 

Michael only has to make a little fuss over the structural integrity of the vault or something, and both of his siblings back off. The risk isn’t worth it, especially if Alex and the other men are waiting for them there tomorrow. It’s not like _Reno_ is going anywhere.

 

That night, when Isobel and Max have gone off in their own ways, Michael feels reckless, and he sends a quick text to the number newly saved in his phone.

 

Alex texts him the address of a hotel nearby in response.

 

“Bad day?” Michael asks two minutes after he showed up, his hands already unfastening the buttons on Alex’s shirt. Alex’s posture screams tension beyond the fun kind, his lips pursed like he’s distracted still, even as he had clearly been waiting for Michael to show up, his eyes are still a little distant.

 

Alex frowns, hands momentarily pausing. Then he says, “Is it that obvious?”

 

It is, but he doesn’t want to think about the reason he knows why Alex is tense right now.

 

“Let me take care of your troubles, baby,” Michael says teasingly, and he laughs when Alex rolls his eyes before leading them both to the bed so Michael falls on top of him, pressing him into the mattress, arching against him before long.

 

He really hadn’t intended to stay, only when they’re both lying there a while later, Alex is warm and still against him, and Michael feels his muscles relax in response, fighting the urge to fall asleep there.

 

Then Alex says, “It was a bad day. This meeting that I thought I had, it fell through. My boss expected me to deliver on my team’s prediction, and I failed.”

 

Michael can read between the lines. Clearly, they expected them to be at the bank today. “It happens,” he says, treading carefully. “Your boss usually a hard ass?”

 

“He’s my father,” Alex says, which shocks Michael into something. “He and I, we have never had a good relationship. He raised me in this small town in New Mexico, the kind where appearance matters, and I never lived up to his expectations.”

 

Michael blinks in the dark. “You’re from New Mexico?”

 

Alex turns to face him, too. His eyes are searching even in the dark. “I am. Why?”

 

“I lived there for a bit,” Michael says. He’s not sure if it’s the afterglow or maybe the darkness shrouding both of him that makes him add, “I got bounced around a few foster homes. Me and my siblings.”

 

“Do you miss it?”

 

“The stars at night in the desert,” Michael allows after a moment spent considering. “I miss sitting out there late at night, feeling like I could see the universe from where I was, like I could reach up and touch them.”

 

He would look up at them, picture some planet far, far away from where there might be people that loved them. The idea that somewhere up there, there was the home they deserved to be in, that they could return to one day.

 

Maybe one day, they will, with these pieces they’ve accumulating.

 

Michael says, “There’s nothing for me there now, though. Can’t say that I’d really want to go back.”

 

Alex exhales. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Wasn’t your fault.” Michael rolls onto his side, his arm brushing Alex’s. “Why do you still work for your dad if he’s such a jerk?”

 

From the moonlight trickling in through the window, he can see how Alex’s lips purse, briefly making Michael regret asking that question.

 

But then he eventually says, “He’s my family, still. Guess I have to hope that means something.”

 

Michael means to say something, perhaps in sympathy. But then his limbs really do start to feel too heavy to move, and he’s drifting off before he can catch himself.

 

The next morning, Alex is gone yet again, as is the suitcase in the corner of the room. There’s a note, though, waiting for him on the bedside table.

 

 _Had to catch an early flight_ , it reads, _Maybe I’ll call you sometime_. _A._

 

Michael traces over the A with his fingertip before he realizes what he’s doing. He crumples up the note, because he can’t afford to be nostalgic.

 

He keeps his number in his phone.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

In the next month, Michael texts Alex photos of the desert, sometimes, vast expanses of land that he’s careful aren’t geo-tagged or otherwise recognizable. The sunset over the sand, a weird rock by his boots.

 

Alex doesn’t send him photos nearly as often, but short messages, sometimes asking how his route is going, or how he’s found out how much he hates a certain town.

 

 _It rained the other day,_ one of them says, the night after Michael gets clocked in the face by a security guard in an archive in Salt Lake City, where some millionaire had a piece of the alien ship engine packed away among other priceless artifacts.

 

Michael’s holding an ice pack up to his face, reads, _Don’t remember the last time I got caught outside in a storm._

 

Michael pictures Alex caught in the middle of the rain, those eyelashes closed and wet against the tops of his cheek. Water dripping down those sharp cheeks, down his neck, trailing down his body. He finds himself grinning, even though it makes his split lip ache.

 

Michael sends him a photo of himself in response - hiding the black eye and most of his face, his shirt pulled up until the flexed muscles in his abdomen are visible, and his sweatpants pulled low enough on his hips so that his tattoo (of a cactus, a dare from Isobel when they were nineteen) is visible.

 

He remembers how Alex had scoffed, _that’s ridiculous_ before mouthing at it like he was trying to lick the ink from his skin, and he thinks he’ll like that inclusion.

 

Alex calls him on the phone nearly immediately after, and Michael makes sure the bathroom door is locked, just in case Max or Isobel swing by, before dropping the ice pack to hit _accept call_.

 

He thinks phone sex is also pretty good when he can have Alex’s low voice groaning right into his ear. It’s one of many firsts that he has with Alex.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

Michael watches the text message bubble disappear and appear for about two minutes, early one morning. He’s been about to text Alex about the dog that had looked eerily like his brother, outside of the hotel they’ve been staying at while they tracked the next piece, but he had stopped when he had seen that Alex was on his phone, already considering some message.

 

Alex finally sends, _do you ever wish you could just run away from your life_?

 

Michael deliberates his answer for what feels like an eternity. _don’t think I’ve ever stopped_ , he starts to type, then deletes.

 

He sends, _where to?_

_Somewhere far away._

_I do._

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Alex and his team catch up with them again in Denver, two weeks later. He looks exhausted when they gain the upper hand, and Michael tries to convince himself that the only reason he’s noting how tired Alex looks is that he’s assuaging the threat. Seeking any weakness.

 

Isobel convinces Alex and his government agent friends - who had stormed in while they were still breaking in the first place - to slide their guns over to them, as they’re stealing cash from one of the many vault drawers. It works, because she threatens she’ll have Michael blow every civilian’s head in if they don’t.

 

They’ve never killed anyone. It’s a bluff, and one that apparently works, even as Michael sees a muscle in Alex’s jaw twitch, that he slides over his gun like everyone else. Max collects the guns, stepping through the open vault door to collect the money and scour for the piece they’re looking for.

 

“We’ve already alerted the authorities,” Alex says from behind them as Isobel slide the alien ship piece into a bag. “If you turn yourselves in now, my superiors might be willing to be more lenient.”

 

Michael turns, and before Isobel can tell him off, he says, “And what? Have ourselves be strapped to tables? Be part of some science experiment?”

 

Alex’s eyes go wide and narrow, like the world’s least hilarious cartoon. “You’ll be tried in court for your crimes, same as anyone else - “

 

“If you think that, then I suppose the military really does brainwash,” Michael says flatly, before Isobel’s tugging at his arm _hard_ , starting to pull him away from them.

 

In the process, his shirt rides up a little bit, and he doesn’t see then, how Alex’s eyes zoom in on the cactus tattoo, until it’s too late.

 

“Michael?” Alex breathes out, and Michael freezes. “How - _you’re_ \- “

 

“ _Michael_ ,” Isobel hisses under her breath in turn, “ _How does he know your name_?”

 

In response, Michael pulls off his mask, because there are no cameras in here, and if Alex knows - well, there’s no point in hiding anymore, is there?

 

Alex looks betrayed, which Michael should have expected, and there’s growing outrage in his eyes. “So all this time,” Alex grits out, “That’s how you were staying one step ahead - that’s why you found me - “

 

“It was also because you’re stupid hot,” Michael tells him because he figures, it’s true, even if it’s only the top of the barrel that is whatever they have - but it’s not exactly the time to go into all of that.

 

Isobel is still glaring at him with the power of a thousand suns. Michael swallows any wonderings of what-if - if Alex hadn’t found out, if he had just been a little more careful - and he plasters on some expression that’s more stable than what he feels.

 

“You couldn’t have known,” he tries, but it just makes Alex look angrier, if possible.

 

“ _Michael_ ,” Isobel repeats, just as upset-sounding, and she ends up hauling him out of there, Alex’s eyes following them, burning a hole in his back, but unable to do more than watch them leave.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Isobel turns on him as soon as they’re in the car, hitting him in the arm. “What the fuck was _that_?”

 

Michael shrugs. He feels tired down to his bones, beyond the extended use of his powers. He slugs down more acetone rather than speak right now.

 

“Michael,” Isobel says, dangerously, “Did you sleep with the man who’s trying to take us down?”

 

“ _What_?” Max exclaims from the front seat, though luckily, his foot slamming down on the brake doesn’t matter when Michael wills the van to continue forward, having predicted that.

 

“It was an accident,” Michael protests, rubbing his arm. “I didn’t know at first, and then the next couple of times, I figured it would be strategic to know when he’d be in town - “

 

“Jesus, Michael,” Max snaps. “Out of all the things!"

 

“It’s happened _multiple times_?”

 

“So that’s why you had us postpone Reno,” Max realizes in quick succession with Isobel, and he looks _disappointed_ , which is much worse than indignant anger. “Why didn’t you just tell us?”

 

That does make Michael pause. He’s been out to Isobel and Max - or at least, not actively hiding anything - for a few years now, but there are a variety of reasons why he didn’t tell them, none of which feel appropriate to be saying right about now.

 

“It’s over now, I mean,” Michael says at last. “Not that it was something. We don’t have to worry. He doesn’t know anything.”

 

He forces himself to believe it. 

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

He buys a new burner phone the next time they stop off for gas, because he’s not stupid and Alex has the old number - who knows what kind of fancy cyber tricks he'll have up his sleeve. 

 

Michael scrolls through the messages they had exchanged in the past few weeks - once again, thinks, _what if,_ before he forces himself to break the SIM card, crumpling the phone with his mind, before tossing it out the car window.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

In the evening after the incident with Guerin in Tucson, Alex finds himself driving to the science division. They have a few scientists on retainer to aid in their investigation there – officially. Unofficially, too many people that Alex went to high school with turned out to be too smart for their own good, and he’s been calling in all sorts of favors ever since he’s been assigned to this operation.

 

He had spent the afternoon in a meeting with Jesse Manes - and several other officers, at least, because one of the stipulations that he had made to head the task force was that he was, under no circumstances, forced to meet one on one with his father at any point. He can still feel his father’s cold eyes on him and thinks that he’ll make himself scarce at headquarters for the next few weeks in case the master sergeant decides to run any kind of inspection.

 

After the second time he had snapped at someone that afternoon, Alex had forced himself to leave, to go check up anything else - and also to get away from the soldier types for a while, admittedly. His leg is killing him once again, so he grabs the crutch out of the back of his car on his way in.

 

He gets through the security without even pulling out his identification card, because by now, any soldier worth their salt recognizes him – perhaps as the leader of the failing operation, but they stay out of his way all the same.

 

Up on the third floor, Liz Ortecho, caught up in whatever brilliant experiment she’s been working on, doesn’t recognize his presence for a good few minutes.

 

He politely coughs, once, and that finally makes Liz’s head snap up. “Alex! What are you doing here?”

 

Alex steps into the lab, decidedly ignoring the blackened beakers to the far end of the room. When scientists like Liz get the kinds of results that she does, he finds that it’s best to just not ask any questions on the process. “What, I can’t just drop by?” he asks her, though it sounds a little too tense even to his own ears.

 

Liz squints at him. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Alex says, and he lets himself exhale. “I’m here to see how you’re doing on that project.”

 

“And I might have some good results for you,” Liz says, and she tilts her head to the bench to the side. Alex follows her gaze as she says, “This alloy I’ve been working on, with some of the ship material you recovered from Roswell, it could be enough to block their powers.”

 

Alex picks up a piece. It doesn’t look alien, or at least not anymore, but he’ll take her word for it. “Do you think you can make it into some kind of restraint?”

 

“Probably,” Liz says. “And when you say restraint - ?”

 

“Like handcuffs,” Alex says. “Something to just stop their powers, until we can take them in.” He pictures Guerin’s smug face as he had trapped Alex’s hands behind his back. He pushes away the image because he really can’t be thinking about Guerin for any more before he loses his mind. “Nothing that will hurt them, but I need something for next time.”

 

She makes some considering noise,. “I suppose this latest episode didn’t go well?”

 

“I take it Maria’s been here?”

 

“Only for a bit,” Liz tells him. She takes off her gloves. “Are you okay, Alex? You look - and I mean this as kindly as possible - horrible.”

 

“Thanks,” Alex says dryly, but softens his voice a little. “I’ll be fine, just busy. How’s Rosa doing?”

 

They’re alone in the lab, but Liz still darts her eyes to the side, to make sure. Even with all her skills, Alex had to fight to get her signed onto this project, precisely because having a close family member with a criminal history had been a definite negative mark on getting her clearance.

 

“She’s still clean,” Liz says, “Staying with my dad in Roswell for a bit. Thinks she wants to become a tattoo artist, actually, wants to get an apprenticeship.”

 

“I’m glad,” Alex says, trying to sound as warm as he can – because he knows that with everything that’s been going on, he’s not been a good friend to her. “If you need anything - you know I’m here.”

 

“Just try answering some messages in the group chat occasionally,” Liz snarks, and he huffs out a laugh. “You know, Maria and I could just text each other just fine. Don’t be a stranger, Manes.”

 

“I’ll tell you what,” Alex says, “Once I start winning the fights with the aliens, the first round’s on me, ok?”

 

“I’ll hold you to that,” Liz says.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

“You know,” Guerin says the next time Alex sees him, when Alex manages to surprise him, alone, to clap the brand new handcuffs around his wrists, “I’m a wanted criminal by the FBI _and_ the CIA. Department of Defense, too.”

 

“I do know,” Alex says, “And I’m literally arresting you for that.” He tightens the handcuffs on Michael’s wrists. “You’re not going to be able to get out of these.”

 

If Guerin is at all concerned, he doesn’t show it. “Does that turn you on?”

 

“Exactly the opposite,” Alex mutters, avoiding his eyes even as Guerin cranes his head back. “You have the right to remain silent - “

 

“Aw, due process for me?” Guerin drawls. “You sure know how to treat a guy.”

 

Alex moves around him, reaching for his radio to alert the others, when Guerin says, still on his knees on the ground, “Don’t you ever wonder why we’re getting all the pieces?”

 

If this is some kind of last minute confession, he’ll bite. “You have a taste for shiny things?”

 

“It’s to rebuild our ship,” Guerin says, and Alex searches his face. If he’s messing with Alex, he can’t see the reason why, as those golden eyes follow him. “The pieces, they came from the original crash, the one in Roswell where we came from.”

 

“You really came from New Mexico?”

  
  
“I own a cowboy hat, too,” Guerin says, and he winks.

 

This is not something that he knew. But maybe, just maybe - “And the cash?” Alex asks him, stalling. “The jewels? Everything else you’ve stolen?”

 

“Well, can’t exactly sell the pieces now, can we,” Guerin says, “And I tried the whole honest career, but really, this is a lot more fun than I’d guess. In case you haven’t realized, we haven’t hurt anyone. Just taking back what was ours, once.”

 

“If you’re rebuilding your ship, does that mean you’re trying to get back to wherever you came from - and where is that?”

 

Something strange comes over Guerin’s expression, something that Alex has never seen before in all the times they’ve met up like this.

 

But before Alex can probe any further, there’s a snapping sound - and Guerin rises, the handcuffs dropping to the floor.

 

“Oops,” Guerin says, rubbing his wrists. “You can return those, right?”

 

The lights flicker suddenly above them, and the vault is cast into sudden darkness. Alex thinks he feels something brush by his shoulder, too feather-light for him to react. But by the time the emergency generator turns back on with a grinding sound, Michael Guerin is gone.

 

 

 

\--- 

 

 

Alex drops the broken cuffs on the work bench, and Liz makes a dismayed face. “They didn’t work,” he says. “And I think they can control electricity, now.”

 

“Damn,” Liz says, going over and carefully probing at them with the end of her pencil. “Not at all?”

 

“I honestly couldn’t tell,” Alex says, resisting the urge to scrub a hand over his face. “He was in them for a few minutes, but Michael might have been able to get out of them the entire time, and he just wanted to torture me for a bit.”

 

“Michael, huh?” Liz asks delicately, and Alex is a combination of too tired and too annoyed at both Guerin and himself to catch it.

 

“He thinks he’s so smart,” Alex mutters, “And he is, but he _knows_ it, and I feel like we’re all dancing around making fools of ourselves. I’m starting to think that there might be something we’re seriously missing, here - “

 

He misses Liz’s raised eyebrows as he walks away, too, still inordinately furious at the whole situation.

 

 

\---

 

 

That night, he gets his father calling him directly on his phone. Alex picks up, and with a grimace on his face that he wouldn’t dare in person, listens to his father rage on the inability of his team, the inability of the resources that he’s wasting -

 

About halfway through, some alarm goes off just outside, cutting off Jesse Manes mid-tirade.

 

Alex says, “I have to go, sir, “ and hangs up quickly before striding out.

 

In the main room, though, Maria just sends him a look. “The program set off some alarm,” she says with the innocence of someone quite literally caught with her finger on the button. “Could be an alien alert. Isn’t that right, Wilson?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

Alex glances around the room, how none of the officers will look back at him. “You know,” he says, fighting to keep a smile off his face in favor of a stern one, “That alarm really shouldn’t go off accidentally, ever. There’s a log.”

 

“You’d better check the system,” Maria says smoothly. “You never know if it could be critical to future mission successes. Even if it keeps you from picking up your phone again tonight.”

 

 

 

\---

 

 

Max tries to bring it up, when they’re back in the apartment that they’ve rented (in cash up front, no information exchanged) for a few weeks, hiding after another job.

 

“If this Manes, if he knows too much,” he says, and Michael already starts glaring at him, because he hasn’t told Max what Alex might know about their past, about him - “We’re going to have to deal with that, you realize.”

 

Max hasn’t actually ever met Alex. He doesn’t know that for all that Alex has pointed his gun at Michael and Isobel, for all of his threats, he’s not a bad man. He _is_ doing his job, and for all that he knows, Michael is the lying, thieving alien, the one who took him to bed and make him feel like a fool.

 

“No,” Michael says, interrupting whatever Max had planned to tell him. “We’re not.”

 

“Michael - “’

 

“You’re not going to do anything to Alex,” Michael says, and he should be scared by how inflexible he is on that. “Nor is Isobel, nor am I. He’s not a bad person. Once we get the ship together, once we’re free of here - he’s not going to be able to come after us, all right?”

 

Max is silent, watching him, so Michael pushes on, “We haven’t hurt anyone, and we’re definitely not going to start with _him_. All right?”

 

He hadn’t heard Isobel come in, and he hides the way he jumps a little when she says, quietly, “Oh, Michael.”

 

 

 ---

 

 

They get two false alarms in the next week. The first is from a bug in the coding they’re developing, a probability machine to determine where next the aliens are likely to hit. Alex stakes out the place for three days, before he decides that it was indeed just that.

 

The second, a camera picks up a blond-haired woman and a curly-haired man slipping out of a store somewhere across the state, into an unmarked van. Their faces weren’t captured, but Alex sends out some of his team, and they don’t find any robberies in progress in the area, either.

 

The third time, though, their program pings a likely location. Alex takes his team to a museum where there’s an unconfirmed rumor of a mysterious hard substance kept in their conservation lab.

 

He’s lucky enough to get there with backup, just as Michael lifts an entire display case, sending employees scurrying. He sees Alex, and actually _beams_.

 

“Alex,” he calls, as Alex motions for the rest of the team to file behind him, just in case Guerin feels like actually throwing something. He doesn’t, but instead steps back into the back room - towards where the piece is being kept, most likely. “Turns out they’ve out of stock today of what I need. I’m going to have to cut this reunion short, but you look stunning, as usual.”

 

If they get in there, they’ll be able to escape out through the back before they have the chance to get around the building.

 

Alex makes the decision, and despite the surprised hiss of his second in command, he dives for the door just as the case lands in front of it. He rolls into the room, fully realizing after the fact that he’s trapped himself in a room with two aliens.

 

“Well,” Guerin says in the silence, “Didn’t expect you to do that.”

 

“Oh, come _on_ ,” his sister says, before proceeding to go over to the back door, that’s helpfully open by now. “Don’t let him shoot you, Michael.”

 

Guerin turns a little, but before Alex can take advantage or even move, really, he ends up with something binding his hands behind his back, his gun no longer an option if he were to try to pull it again. Guerin glances back at him, giving him a look like, _what can you do_?

 

“Why are you doing this?” Alex asks out loud, maybe to keep Guerin’s eyes on him. If he can just distract him, his officers might be able to get through the door - “If there’s no piece here – why stick around? You could’ve been gone before we got here.”

  
  
Guerin’s eyes gleam like he’s amused – or maybe he’s laughing at Alex. “Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

 

  
“I think I should be insulted if you think that I’m no threat.”

  
  
“Oh, you’re definitely a threat,” Guerin says, and he stoops down across from him. Alex meets his eyes. “Don’t you ever wonder why your government wants us put away?”

  
  
“The many thefts you’ve committed? The threats? The property damage alone – “

 

“Or maybe they don’t like that they can’t control us,” Guerin says. “Can you tell me that even if we hadn’t taken to the criminal side, we would’ve have been locked up the moment someone found out who we were? It would’ve been just a matter of time.”

 

He’s a soldier. He’s been trained for years to obey orders – to do what needs to be done. They tell him, _go catch the aliens_ , and Alex does so.

 

And yet, he finds himself saying, “What would you have me do? Just let you go until you build your ship?”

 

Guerin says, “Run away with me.”

 

“You can’t be serious.”

 

“Run away from your dad,” Guerin urges, and there’s growing conviction in his tone, “You can do whatever you want – “

 

“Be a criminal, you mean,” Alex says, intending for it to be a barb - but Guerin’s lips just quirk up. "I don't care for that - or for  _you_ , I'll remind you." 

 

“Wouldn’t want any dirt on your hands, baby,” Guerin says. “That’s what you’d have me for.”

 

“Forgive me for not wanting to be some kind of kept man for an alien thief,” Alex says flatly. “Oh, and breaking the law.”

 

“Think about it,” Guerin says, too steady, and Alex sucks in an involuntary breath when he puts his hands on Alex’s thighs – low enough to be innocent enough, the weight of which makes him feel all kinds of way. “We would work well together.”

 

“You’re crazy.”

 

“I think you like me,” Guerin says, tilting his head in a way that Alex definitely should not be noting like how he is right now. “And don’t you ever want to have sex on a huge pile of cash?”

 

“Two words – paper cuts,” Alex says. Then he has to shift his legs just a little when Guerin leans in so that his breath is hot on Alex’s ear, his hands sliding up higher.

 

“The US dollar is actually made of a specialized cotton-linen blend,” Guerin tells him, and the heat from his hands sinks right through his pants, almost like he’s touching him directly - “Besides the security ribbons on the Franklins. Or ink. I’ve been doing some light reading.”

 

He focuses on the bindings on his wrists, instead of the way that Guerin’s eyes dip to his mouth. “Am I to guess that you’re going to rob the Mint or something?”

 

Guerin actually winks at him, swaying back a little. “I’ll see you next time, Alex,” he says, before standing and walking away. 

 

His officers burst in not a minute later, finding Alex still on the ground, staring out the open back door. 

 

 

\---

 

 

Whatever Alex expects when he returns to the base, it's not his brother waiting for him. Maria's standing behind him, her face flat. 

 

"Flint?" Alex asks, incredulous beyond formalities. "What are you doing here?" He can't think of the last time he's seen him - maybe his second year in the Air Force?

 

"Dad transferred me in," Flint says without preamble. He's always looked more like their mother than Alex, but the stiff, calculated expression he has on is all his father.  "He needs the situation with the targets resolved."

 

"Resolved?"

  
  
"The targets are to be eliminated upon the next incident," Flint says, and Alex does his best not to react. "I'm here to provide tactical support." 

 

"Wilson," Alex orders, not looking away from his brother, or maybe he doesn't know what else to do, "Get Sergeant Manes up to speed on the project." 

 

"Yes, sir."

 

"What's the progress on the tracking program now?" he can hear Flint ask as he exits the room. Alex makes it to his office, and finds once he closes his door, the breath comes out of his lungs all at once, as he steadies himself against the nearest vertical surface. 

 

Damn it. He  _cares_. 

 

\---

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back at it again w these fools!!!! the plotty chapter necessary to put between two purely self-indulgent chapters ahead
> 
> (cw ahead for some implied abuse/references to torture)
> 
> all your comments made my heart smile ❤︎❤︎❤︎

\---

 

  
For all that they’re good at robbing banks together, Max and Isobel aren’t very useful in helping to build their ship. Michael’s been stuck for several weeks trying to piece together the life support systems - or that’s what he can best guess they are, those person-shaped pods made of the same material that seems to hook into the rest of the console.

 

(He’s already refrained from making so many egg jokes to his siblings, they don’t even know how grateful they should be.)

 

He’s kept what he’s built already in Roswell. It’s a bitch to drive all the way back there whenever he needs to work on it, but there’s something admittedly poetic about the whole thing, leaving from the place where they crash landed in the first place. Ending at the start.

 

When Michael starts making noises about working more on the ship, Isobel and Max seem all too willing to head back so he can work, or so he thinks.

 

The three of them are in a diner on the road one morning on the way back to Roswell to drop off the latest piece. Michael is idly sketching on diner napkins while they wait for their food, trying not to notice when some of his pen strokes look too much like a certain profile or a flick of hair across a lightly creased forehead.

 

Across from him, Isobel stirs a spoon in her coffee, the metal making plinking noises against the ceramic. Max flips the menu from front to back, eyes studying the words like his choice of syrup topping is the most critical thing in the world right about now.

 

As Michael’s pencil traces out some nonsensical pattern along the edge, getting dangerously close to scrawling on the tabletop surface over and over again, Isobel says, “What if we didn’t leave?”

 

Max snorts. “It’s a nice enough diner, but I think you’d get bored.”

 

“I meant from the planet." 

 

Max drops the menu, and Michael can’t even summon his telekinesis, in his surprise, to stop it from sliding off the table top. She presses, “We could have something here. We could build a life, with no more running.”

 

Max leans in with a sharp intake of breath, while Michael’s mind just whirls around and around. “Did you forget the part where there’s an entire government task force intent on capturing us?”

 

“There are plenty of high-end criminals hiding somewhere in the world!”

 

“Iz, we’ll _always_ be hiding," Michael says.

 

Isobel presses her lips together into a flat line. “It’s not like we’d be short on money ever, not at this rate. We could find somewhere secluded, where no one would think to find us. We might be the most set up to be able to do it, I mean.”

 

It’s evident this is not a passing thought she’d just had. He’s just not sure how to contemplate that, though - this planet has been many things to him, given him many things - but the idea of staying forever?

 

Max says, “You don’t want to go back to wherever we came from, where we might belong?”

  
“We don’t know if we’re the only ones out there,” Isobel points out. “We talk about it like we were in an accidental crash, all those years ago, but what if there were more that came to this planet? Other like us, out there - ”

 

“Yeah, if only,” Michael says bitingly, “Oh, wait, that’s right, it’s just that humans killed most of us who came here in the first place - that’s still a three-star Yelp review, I mean!”

 

He looks over to Max, but Max - now, Max doesn’t look like he has the same kind of reservation. He’s not happy with it, not with that line digging between his eyebrows, but he’s also got that look in his face like he’s considering it.

 

“Do I have to remind you about that time we were eight, and they decided to only give us enough food for the two of us?” Michael says sharply before he can say anything. “When we were eleven, and you, you were locked in that basement because you wore some goddamn nail polish out of the house? The time they broke my fingers - Max, you remember, all the times you’ve had to make yourself sick just to fix us - “

 

“Michael,” Max says, warningly, and he notices now how the silverware on their table has started to rattle. “That’s enough. You need to - “

 

His nails dig into his fist, and the spoon to his left slides to the wall. “Don’t you tell me to _calm down_ \- “

 

“You know you can’t take him with us, right?” Isobel retorts, and Michael turns his head to look at her, yet again thrown off guard. The silverware stops moving. “Has that crossed your mind, Michael? That you’d be leaving Alex Manes behind?”

 

Unbidden, he thinks of Alex’s face when Michael had said to him, Run away with me. He hadn’t meant it like that - maybe - but had he?He forces himself to stay still, breathing through his nose. “This has nothing to do with him - “

 

“Don’t pretend like I’m someone else,” Isobel throws right back. “I can feel your thoughts. I know how you feel about him. So tell me, why do you want to leave him so much?”

 

“It's not like we can ever be together,” Michael grits out. “Whatever I feel, it's never going to happen. Whatever you want, whatever you think you can get out of being stuck here - "

 

“I just want to be normal,” Isobel says, and it’s like it’s been wrenched out of her as she adds, angrily, “Why is that so impossible to consider?”

 

She gets up rapidly, stalks away past the waitress who had been approaching their table with another pot of coffee. Max is stuck between looking her retreating figure and Michael, who feels like his glare could cut through the vinyl booth if he tries enough before he slides out and follows her.

 

They’ve wanted to get off this planet, done so much to that goal. Only what concerns him the most now is that it’s clear it’s not going to be as easy as a break as he’s always envisioned it. The possibility of something else - it’s terrifying.

 

 

  
\---

 

 

  
Alex can freely admit to himself that it brings him satisfaction to see how frustrated Flint gets, once he understands the lack of information they’ve all struggled with these past few months. It’s not like Alex is inept at his job, after all - no matter what Jesse Manes must have told Flint about him - and the truth of that seems to make Flint seethe.

 

He wishes Maria were here to see this, but it’s her day off. Plus, he wouldn’t want to subject her - or anyone else, for that matter - to his brother for any more than strictly necessary.

  
“What do you mean, there’s no record of them?” Flint demands to one his techs, while Alex watches, eyebrows raised. “The aliens exist, there must be some kind of paperwork - “

 

“It’s not like they registered with the DMV when they were sixteen,” Alex informs him, seeing a vein in the side of Flint’s neck bulge out. “We have some security footage, but they don’t have birth certificates, social security numbers, housing records, or any kind of financial record, as far as we know. They just have the money to live without having to rely on the kind of paper trail that we can find.”

 

Flint turns to face him. “And the program doesn’t need those records?“

 

“It uses other variables to predict their behavior, along with where we know the ship pieces that they’re seeking are,” Alex says. “It takes in footage from as many points as we’ve been able to access to work as a real-time alarm, and predict the probability of the next place they’ll hit up.”

 

“So then you don’t know what’s wrong with it?”

 

“I wrote the algorithm myself,” Alex says, incredibly evenly. “It’s not a matter of an error. We’re not tracking your average criminal here - they’ve managed to hide from the system, and that makes the tracking very different since there’s no basis for this.”

 

Flint scoffs, turns back to the screen. Alex watches as his eyes track all over the monitors. “When the old man told me about this task force,” he says, “I thought you just needed the manpower. Guess it’s a good thing that my team’s already developed the bioweapons.”

 

Before he joined up with the Air Force, Alex had spent eighteen years of his life living with his father. As such, he knows how to delicately press, without having it blow back in his face. “I thought the bioweapons were another division?”

 

His brother takes the bait. “They needed a weapons specialist,” he says, glancing around - as if everyone in this room at this point hasn’t already been sworn to secrecy on the threat of being shipped off somewhere far, far, away, should they blow any whistles. “Once we had enough material to work with, it wasn’t hard to tailor the coding to their genetics. They’re pretty sloppy for criminals, and that worked in our favor.”

 

Alex frowns. “Their genetics?”

 

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Flint says, half-condescending, half amused. “Let’s just say they’ll be in for a surprise, trying to use their powers the next time we find them.”

 

Alex nods once, short. “I’ll be in my office,” he says, moving away, but Flint’s voice stops him mid-stride.

 

“I’ve terminated the contracts for the civilians you brought on,” his brother says, and Alex slowly turns back. “The priority on the op means that it’s been upped above their clearance levels.”

 

Alex breathes in, holds it, exhales. “I’ve built this team very intentionally these past few months, to address - “

 

“And it wasn’t working,” Flint says bluntly. He doesn’t even look at him. “The base will send you their termination papers to sign.”

 

He forces his feet to move. “I have matters to attend this afternoon,” Alex says, his voice stiff.

 

He doesn’t let Flint answer, slamming the door of his office shut.

 

 

  
\---

 

 

 

Alex shows up to Maria’s apartment, holding up the bottle of añejo he’d picked up when she opens the door.

 

“I didn’t know,” Alex says without preamble. “The order came from above me.”

 

“I could give less of a fuck about the job,” Maria says shortly, “As does Liz. I’m more concerned with the fact that whenever your family’s in town, you shut us - you shut me out.”

 

He smiles or tries to, at least. “I’m trying to stop being a shitty friend who only comes to you post-crisis mode.”

  
“And how’s that going?”

 

“Mixed success.”

 

Maria nods to the bottle. “Are you dropping that off?”

 

“This is to share,” Alex says, “I don’t like day drinking alone. Can I come in, talk about the upcoming crisis?”

 

Maria studies him. “Your brother,” she says, “He’s a piece of work, so I hear.”

 

“He takes after my father.”

 

She opens the door fully. “We’ll talk about your problems first,” Maria says, “I’ll need more of that tequila for mine.”

 

“Deal,” Alex says, moving in past her. “Glasses?”

 

“Left cabinet.”

 

 

\---

 

 

  
  
They don’t talk much, the rest of the way to Roswell. Isobel makes Michael sit up front with Max, who squints between the road and the GPS pulled up on his phone so many times that Michael’s nearly begging to let him drive by the time they’re passing over the line that marks the start of Chavez County.

 

They own a house out here, an open ranch that’s surrounded by miles of desert and blue sky. Michael takes his time getting out of the car, as Isobel throws open the back door and stomps out.

 

“Iz,” he tries, and Isobel keeps on moving. “I don’t know, all right!”

  
She’s fumbling with the key, and Michael takes the chance to continue, “I don’t know what you want - I mean, you never brought it up - “

  
“I want you to at least consider the choices you make,” Isobel snaps finally, and she turns around. “I’m tired of the three of us driving right into the ground with our misery. Why can’t we want something other than an escape?”

 

“We kind of have a track record to suggest otherwise!” Michael shouts. “And it’s not like you’ve been entirely forthcoming about it all this time!”

 

They stare at each other, both of their jaws working. Isobel bites out, “I like it here. I want to stay. And if you - both want to leave this planet, then, of course, I’m going to go with you, and I’ll hate you for it!”

 

Her nostrils flare out, and Michael says, feeling helpless, “Iz - “

 

“I don’t want you two to leave me behind,” Isobel says, and her lower lip wobbles a bit like when she wants to cry, only it’ll make her angrier to let the tears come. “There. I said it. I’m just tragically selfish, don’t you know?”

 

“Hey,” Michael says at last, “Come on, we wouldn’t - “

 

“You don’t need to say what you think I want to hear,” Isobel says stiffly, turning her face to wipe under her eyes. "It's not like - "

 

“Chances are, the ship can’t support human physiology,” Michael says abruptly, interrupting her. Isobel stops and looks at him. “Alex - he’s got me messed up, all right? I don’t know what I’m going to do. Let alone the fact that he would never agree - god, he’s trying to arrest me, Iz, arrest all of us, and I don’t care. How’s that for some tragedy to compete with yours?”

 

“Michael,” Isobel says, endlessly soft and a complete turn in her tone, and now it’s his turn to wipe his eyes.

 

“Not like I’ve told him any of this,” Michael mutters. He can hear Isobel come up in front of him, and he startles a bit as she wraps her arms around him.

 

Isobel rests her head on his shoulder. “Come on,” she says firmly, as if for both of them. “Max is probably sitting in that car, considering if he should book it - “

 

“I’m here,” Max says, startling them both. His hands are in his pockets, and he clears his throat. “You know, neither of you is good at communicating.”

 

“Hey,” Michael starts, and Isobel laughs wetly.

 

“Come on,” Isobel tells their brother, motioning until he gets close enough so that she can grab onto him as well, and he puts his arms around the two of them.

 

 They'll need to talk, but for now, Michael lets her have this - hell, he needs this. He needs them.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

Late that night, when Maria is curled up next to him, asleep on her couch, Alex stares at the contact information he’s saved on this phone this whole time. His hands are a little loose from the tequila, the lack of sleep and the ache in his chest pushing him in the first place.

 

It’s probably breaking half a dozen laws and security clearances. But he types out the message to Michael anyway, feeling reckless -

 

_I miss you._

 

He doesn’t get an answer. He hadn’t expected one, but as he slides down on to the couch to better accommodate the two of them, Alex swallows his disappointment anyway.

 

 

 

 

  
\---

 

 

 

Alex thinks about the night before he had found out who Michael Guerin really was. In a tiny motel room in Denver, Michael curled up against him, both of them lying there - their neighbor having finally ceased their angry knocking on the shared wall in complaint for all the noise they had been making.

 

Some car passes them by in the parking lot outside, the light turning greenish as it bounces off the wall and onto the curve of Michael’s back. If he listens carefully, he thinks he can hear water trickling through the pipes, just barely audible over the sound of their breathing.

 

It should scare him, that he feels as calm as he’s ever been in these moments. That he feels safe - and as far from it, at the same time.

 

Michael says into his neck, “What if I asked you to run away with me?”

 

Alex tries to move a little to look at him, but Michael remains steadfast in his seeming pursuit of pressing his body into his skin like he’s trying to stay there for good. Alex says in return, “What, are you asking now?”

 

“Would you do it?” His voice sounds too solemn for what Alex has grown to expect to hear from him - weighted with something he can’t place.

 

When he was growing up, he had dreamed of running away from Roswell, away from his father, leaving everyone behind before they left him. Only he had joined up as soon as he had graduated high school, kept within reach of his father and brothers, and even now, he’s thinking about them when he could be thinking about how Michael’s curls diffuse the light from this angle.

 

What if he left?

 

Alex wets his lips. He combs his fingers through Michael’s hair, thinks of his answer. But then he feels how Michael’s breath evens out, and he presses a kiss to his hair instead, lets himself think of the possibilities for the first time in years.

 

He doesn’t sleep for most of the night. But he must eventually drift off, for Michael’s gone in the morning, only leaving rumpled sheets behind him.

 

Then Alex arrives at the bank, sees the familiar tattoo on the hip of the alien robber that he’s been tracking for months.

 

Michael says, “You couldn’t have known,” trying to catch his eye, and Alex thinks, _how could I be so stupid?_

 

He’s pulled away by the woman he’s with - who Alex later realizes is one of the siblings that Guerin had told him about, who he never could have imagined he would’ve met like this - and Alex convinces himself that the burning inside him is hatred for Guerin, for being tricked.

 

That it’s anything other than the bitter disappointment, the loss of what could’ve been, anything else that would be so much more dangerous to admit to himself.

 

Because what if he said, _I would?_

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

They spend a few days outside of Roswell. Michael puts the piece onto the rest of the ship, the edges gliding together as if they had never been separated, in a matter of seconds. He spends the rest of the time consulting his notes, making adjustments to his calculations with the additional mass.

 

He makes some repairs to their van, too. The mechanical work helps keep his hands busy, his mind still.

 

Isobel and Max come in and out of the garage, both seemingly content to watch him work in light of their conversation. He thinks it’s the second day when Isobel finally brings it up again, with Max leaning on the wall opposite of her as Michael tests one of the headlights.

 

“We think you should continue building it,” Isobel says on the third day. “We can get more pieces, and we can talk about what we’ll do when the time gets get closer.”

 

Michael straightens up. He lifts his eyebrows at Max, who gives a half-shrug.

 

“I don’t know what I want,” Max admits. “I’ve never liked that we had to steal. But I don’t know if I want to go.”

 

Michael says, “So what? We just continue our crime spree?”

 

“Well,” Isobel says, “I do like the lavish life.” She dangles her fingers at him, covered in those favored bejeweled rings of hers, for emphasis. 

 

“There’s a collection outside of Albuquerque,” Max says. “Got a fence there claiming they have a piece of an alien ship. You up for the trip?”

 

  
Michael closes the hood of the car in response.

 

 

 

  
\---

 

 

 

The program sends them an alert the next morning, and Alex is called in by his brother to the headquarters before they mobilize.

 

“The major has been informed. We’ll deploy two teams on the outside,” Flint says, having already pulled up the map of downtown Albuquerque. “I’ll lead the front assault - “

 

“They’re under my command,” Alex says tersely, coming up to study the plans. “They’ll likely come in front that east entrance there. Wilson will lead the rear, we’ll be in the front.”

 

Flint acquiesces, which is not what he expected, with a nod. “We leave in five,” he says, already striding over to where they keep the equipment. “Time to stop some aliens.”

 

 

 

\---

 

 

  
In Albuquerque, Alex can tell that they’re there before they even fully pull up to the bank. Flint’s giving orders to the officers around them, as Alex adjusts his bulletproof vest - like that’s been any help, previously.

 

They usher out the civilians caught inside, and they hustle inside, just as the ceiling lamps spark and fritz out ahead of them, putting the three figures on the far side into shadows - but not all invisible, thanks to the emergency lights. Alex pulls out his gun on reflex like he always has, but Flint stops him with a hand over his.

 

“We’ll use mine,” he says, nodding to one of the officers on his left, which bring out a significantly larger rifle. “Attention! This is the United States Air Force - “

 

“Your throat hurt there, Alex?” Alex can hear Michael call over his brother. “I thought you were the one calling the shots.”

 

“Surrender yourselves,” Flint orders, “Or we will use lethal force - “

 

“Surprise,” Michael says, and Alex watches as his curly head turns toward them, finally. “I’m telekinetic, so your bullets don’t really do well with that. Alex, who is he - “

 

Flint lifts his hand, and the officer with the rifle aims at Michael, who stops at the end of the hallway. “On my mark.“

 

His hand drops, and the gun fires - only instead of the gun floating up in the air, or anything else Alex has seen Michael do, there’s a loud crash as the bullet hits glass.

 

“Shit!” He can hear Michael exclaim, then say something to Isobel or Max, he can’t tell.

 

Whatever that gun is made out of, it’s obviously resistant to their alien powers, Alex grimly realizes, when Flint’s mouth curls into a pleased expression. Without entirely thinking it through, Alex interrupts the next shot by saying, “We’re not an execution squad.”

 

“They’re dangerous, Alex,” Flint replies, eyes trained ahead, “We’re here to stop them by any means.”

 

He holds out his hands, and the officer hands him the gun - Flint’s always been the crack shot, Alex remembers, can shoot anything fifty feet away -

 

  
“Flint,” Alex says, then tries to infuse his voice with all the authority he can manage, “Stand down.”

 

But his brother doesn’t budge.“By any means,” he repeats, and his finger squeezes the trigger.

 

There’s a crash of someone hitting the ground, and Alex’s stomach plummets. Then he hears a faint groan, and violent relief comes next - but he knows Flint is too good of a shot to have missed.

 

“Michael!” Isobel shouts, and just as suddenly, Flint falls to the ground, eyes nearly rolling back in his head. Alex flinches, as she says, “Michael, hold on - !“

 

“Do not fire,” Alex barks out to his officers, who all have their guns drawn and pointed at them at this point. One of them drags Flint back, who’s still unresponsive. “Take care of him - “

 

He can hear scraping sounds, then, and with dim horror, he realizes that Wilson’s team in the back are making it through the walls. He’s been in gunfights, been pinned under gunfire for hours on end - and yet he’s not sure he’s ever felt so helpless as right now. “Forward with me,” Alex orders, “Don’t use that fucking gun - “

 

He leads the officers forward, two of them right behind him, two more streaming out to either side. The emergency lights are flickering, now, and Wilson’s team bursts in through the opposite entrance.

 

“Michael!” Isobel calls again, sounding desperate, and that’s when Alex realizes that the doors are hovering, having been ripped from the walls. They’re pushing Isobel and her other brother away, protecting them from any fire, towards the other unguarded side - away from them, out of the building.

 

That’s another concern. Right now, he needs to figure out what happened to Michael. His heartbeat is pounding in his ears. They need to pull back - figure out what’s happening -

 

Alex rounds the corner, sees Michael on the ground. His eyes are closed, clutching his shoulder, that’s bleeding all over the marble.

 

Alex moves forward on instinct, putting pressure on the wound. Michael groans, but doesn’t move anymore. “You,” he rasps out to one of the men, “I need bandages - “

 

Then Alex hears one of his men say “Major Manes, sir,” and his blood runs cold.

 

“Captain Manes,” Jesse Manes says, “On your feet.”

 

“With all respect, sir,” Alex says, focused more on Michael than propriety at this moment, not quite meeting his father’s cool gaze, “I cannot.”

  
His heart’s thrumming in his chest now, nearly painfully. A long moment, then - “You,” Jesse orders, “Take his place.”

 

There’s a man at Alex’s elbow, then, and he puts his hands over the wound. Michael’s eyelashes flutter, and Alex swallows, forced to let go, as the man expertly gathers enough gauze to make a compress, just above his arm.

 

“Isobel,” Michael says faintly, coughing, “Max - where - “

 

“He needs medical attention,” Alex says, still on his knees, and he finally looks up at his father. Jesse Manes regards him like he’s done something particularly distasteful, as Alex says, “Or are we just going to let him bleed out?”

 

He’ll have hell to pay for that later, but for now, Jesse shifts on his feet, never one to cause a scene in front of anyone else. “There’s a car out front,” Jesse says, his eyes not leaving Alex’s. “Take him to the base.”

 

“Yes, sir!”

 

They surround Michael, and they take him away. Alex can feel blood drying on his hands as he stares right back at his father.

 

“Alex,” his father says, when it’s just the two of them, “We need to talk.”

 

 

 

\---

 

 

  
Michael comes to, and his hands are cuffed behind his back. There’s also a bag on his head, which is a little too CIA black site for his tastes, so he focuses on the more immediate sensation of metal against his wrists.

 

He flexes, to no avail, and then focuses on the mechanism with his mind. He can feel it, but when he tries to coax the metal apart, he finds that he can’t. It’s like his senses are numb, like he’s been doused in an icy bath - not unlike painkillers, too, which explains why he’s pretty sure he got shot, and yet he feels no pain.

 

“If you’re trying to escape,” an unfamiliar voice informs him, “It’s pointless.”

 

“Nah, I was just getting comfortable,” Michael says. He tries to make out any shapes beyond the bits of light filtering in through the cloth. “Can I call my lawyer now?”

  
There are just footsteps in response, then the sound of a door closing. Michael wills the cuffs apart, his entire body straining with the effort -

 

Nothing. Well, if they’re going to play this, then he’s going to do his part to make this a miserable experience all around, thank you very much. Michael opens his mouth, and he yells - at the same time, reaching out with his mind as much as he can stand, _maxisobelmaxisobelMAXISOBEL_ -

 

Only for the doors to open again, and then someone’s hurrying towards him. But before Michael can try anything, there’s a needle jabbing him in the neck, and he passes out.

 

 

 

\---

 

 

  
The next time he comes to, the bag’s still on his head, but he can sense that he’s not alone. There’s a dull ache in his shoulder, now, and his mouth is impossibly dry along with the headache that’s come on.

 

Then there are muffled voices coming from somewhere, and Michael strains once again, trying to get a sense of his bearings.”

 

Then he can hear them. “It’s not like he’s going to be able to get far,” and Michael recognizes that voice.

 

“I wouldn’t have expected this naivety from you,” the voice from before replies. “They’re not like us. They’re dangerous, and you would do well to remember - “

 

“How far do you think he’d make it?” Alex demands. “It’s not like - “

 

More quiet words, cutting him off. Then the door’s opening, and Michael tenses.

 

Someone yanks the bag off of his head. In the bright fluorescent light, it takes his eyes a moment to adjust, get a sense of everything around him.

 

Only instead of Alex, there’s another, older man there in front of him. Michael blinks up at him, at the cold eyes that are tracking his every move, even as he’s restrained like this.

 

“Hey, Alex,” Michael says hoarsely, blinking up at the other man, “Terrible service here.”

 

The man’s eyes narrow. “He knows your name,” he says, still looking at Michael but obviously not addressing him.

 

“Dad,” Alex says, stepping out - and Michael’s eyes fall to the bruise that’s on his jaw. “You can’t expect to hold him here - “

 

“Aliens are not citizens,” the man says, and Michael realizes who this must be. “He’s under military possession, indefinitely.”

 

Alex’s eyes fall to Michael, now, and Michael swallows. If there was any thought in his head that Alex would stand by, watch this happen - it’s erased when he sees the look in Alex’s eyes, the horror there as he glances between Michael and his father. “We have due process. A legal system in place that applies to them - “

 

“I will have you removed from this task force,” Manes says. Flat, simple, and yet Alex flinches like he’s been struck. “You’re no use if you cannot separate your emotions from what needs to be done in the matter of security.”

 

Alex straightens up. “Yes, sir,” he says. Michael closes his eyes for a brief moment.

 

“Have the specialists increase the sedatives,” Manes says then, and when he glances back at Michael, it’s like he’s studying a vase, a chair - not something living. “One of my men will be flying in to collect samples. I want hourly reports delivered to me.”

 

He moves by Alex, who looks like he can’t drag his eyes away from Michael, as the elder Manes exits the room.

 

In the silence that stretches out, Michael can see him swallow, start, “I - “

 

“Save it,” Michael says, even as his eyelids start to get heavy. He’s too goddamn tired, or maybe his brain’s just mercifully shutting down to save him from considering what lies in store for him here. “Go run back to Daddy.”

 

He’s not sure if he hears footsteps receding, or maybe his brain just conjures them as he slips into unconsciousness once again.

 

 

 

  
\---

 

 

 

He’s not sure how much time passes, in there. They don’t put the bag back over his head, but the few times he manages to pry his eyes open, he can tell that the dressing over his shoulder has been changed, a new sharp prick of pain in his neck. Something strong, he hopes. He doesn’t want to think about what’s coming.

 

He hopes Isobel and Max did the smart thing, got the fuck out of Dodge. Forget about him - they need to be far, far away.

 

 

 

  
\---

 

 

 

The next thing he knows, Alex is back in there, with two guards. Michael tries reaching out again with his powers, split the cuffs or something, but can’t even muster the faintest sensation, now.

 

“I thought you were different,” Michael says to Alex, even as he looks at the dirty ground. Even though he wishes he could be vicious, look right into Alex’s eyes in some condemnation, he finds that he’s too worn to do more. Maybe he’s gotten too soft for heartbreak, too. “Guess you’re like the rest of humans. Always too scared, too convinced on what they’re doing to turn back.”

 

He wishes Alex would say something - spit something back, look hurt, something. But when he looks up, his gaze remains even. Watching Michael.

 

Michael breathes in, out of his nose. “I figured if anyone would destroy me, it’d be you,” he says to the room. “But like this - God.”

 

Alex tells the guards who are at either side of the door, “I’m administering the next sedative, pre-procedure.”

 

He’s not too proud to fight the panic that that incites in him. Michael wrenches his head to the side as Alex approaches, syringe in hand. “Fuck you, Manes - “ he gasps out, trying to avoid the needle with any last bit of energy he has left. “Get the fuck away from me!“

 

Alex kneels on the ground next to him He’s leaning forward, right next to Michael’s ear - and Michael can only tense, waiting for the final betrayal, just as Alex says, “I like it better when you call me baby.”

 

He presses something into Michael’s hands, which feels unmistakably like a key. Michael huffs out a surprised exhale, which turns into a feeling of stunned disbelief when Alex says right into Michael’s ear, “Do you think you can run?”

 

Michael lets his eyes wander over to the backs of the two guards, facing away from them. “Goddamn you,” he says under his breath, then, “I think I can manage.” He flips the key in between his fingers, wincing as even that slight gesture makes his shoulder twinge.

 

“Good,” Alex says. He lifts his hand with the syringe, must make it look like he’s injecting it into Michael’s neck, as he continues in a low voice, “We have about two minutes to get you to the exit. When the opportunity comes - “

 

He should be surprised that it takes less than a moment for him to forgive Alex for everything. But he’s not, and he does.

 

“You know,” Michael tells him, feeling foolhardy and every kind of scared, but he’ll manage this - “This calls for an absolutely obscene thank you, if I get out of here alive.”

 

Alex brushes his lips over Michael’s earlobe. “I’ll be collecting,” he says, before straightening up. “I’m sorry.”

 

Then there’s an explosion, and Michael watches as Alex straightens up, draws his gun, and he turns on the two guards.

 

 

 

 

\---

 

 

 

It turns out, Michael can’t run. As best as Alex can gauge, the combined blood loss and sedatives mean that as soon as he’s done dispatching the two officers in the containment room, he turns to see Michael on all fours, looking pale-faced like he’d nearly fallen.

 

“Okay,” Alex says, going back to him. “Your arm, around my neck - “

 

The charges he had set on the entrance will buy them some time, enough so that he can spend precious moments making sure Michael is propped up against him in the most comfortable way before they start to take off.

 

With Jesse Manes now off base, Flint still recuperating in some military hospital after Isobel had twisted his brains, no one expects Alex to turn on them. Even with the alarms blaring overhead, Alex finds his way down the hallways with ease, ignoring the twinge of his leg against with the prosthetic socket, focused on getting them - Michael - out of this hole.

  
He can focus on the task at hand. Not how he's definitely just earned himself a dishonorable discharge, potentially lots of military jail time, the wrath of his father once word gets to him - 

 

“That wildlife refuge out of town,” Michael says suddenly, as Alex grapples with keeping him upright as they make a quick turn down the next corridor, “There’s a lake. Lots of birds - “

 

Alex checks him over as best as he can, trying to ascertain if he received some kind of head wound too he didn’t know about. “Guerin, what - “

 

“That’s where I would’ve taken you in Roswell,” Michael says, not quite biting back his groan when Alex continues hustling them down the corridor. “If we - if we - had a real date. Camping by the lake, birding in the morning or - some shit, I don’t know - “

 

“I don’t like camping,” Alex tells him, half paying attention to him, half trying to guess where the next set of guards are going to be, “It’s never as fun as you think it would be, and you get cold so easily.”

 

“Lucky for you, I run hot.” Michael lets out a wheeze when Alex sets him against the wall, firing his gun blindly around the corner before scooping him up again - “You - ow - be careful - “

 

Alex gets a better grasp around his torso before they’re moving again. “Should I be concerned I’ve been downgraded from getting my own private island?”

 

That elicits a laugh from Michael before he coughs. “Fuck, we make a pair, don’t we?”

 

“We’re nearly there,” Alex tells him, “Just - hang on - “

 

He slams his fist into the button next to the emergency exit, and the gate slowly begins to rise. He steadies Michael as best as he can, says, “This is where you’re going to have to take over.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’ll cover you. There’s a car waiting for you in the lot,” Alex says, and Michael scoffs - and then his eyes go wide when he sees that Alex isn’t kidding. “I’m serious. Your powers should be coming back soon, once the serum runs through - “

 

“Alex.”

 

“I need to get back in there to wipe away your files anyways,” Alex says firmly, just like he gives orders. “Come on. You need to get it together - “

 

“Not going to happen,” Michael says in a voice that bodes that he isn’t going to budge. But Alex has always been stubborn. “You think the government’s just going to forgive the fact you’ve broken me out, then?“

 

“I don’t,” Alex says, as steady as he can manage. “I put you in here, and now I’ve got you out. That’s some penance, and I’ll face whatever comes next.”

  
“Absolutely-fucking-not,” Michael argues, even as he sways a little. Alex reaches out and steadies him, gun already drawn in his other hand. “You still - you still owe me. M’not going to let you - “

 

“It’s not your choice,” Alex says, and he lets himself bunch his fist in Michael’s shirt, forces him to say, “We don’t owe each other anything, Guerin, we barely know each other - “

 

“I know you,” Michael says. “And I think you know me.”

 

“Guerin - “

 

“I asked if you’d run away with me,” Michael says, and his hand comes up to clutch at Alex’s. Fingers over fingers, so he can feel Michael’s heartbeat on both sides now. “Now I’m telling you.”

 

It’s a massively, terribly, horrible idea. It goes against every instinct in him. Michael’s eyes blink back at him, and he knows that if he says no, Michael will go once again. 

 

Alex says, “Okay.”

 

 

 

\---

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been FOREVER in the writing but I decided to split it up into two more chapters to finish!! it has been a wild, wild summer for me, but thank you all so much for your encouragement/comments and I hope you enjoy! :)

The silence in the car should feel weighted, with all that’s happened just dangling in the air between them. Instead, Michael just feels more and more relief, the more pavement they put between them and back there. The material of the shirt he's wearing - stolen from a guard for him by Alex, the matching jacket crumpled up and in the backseat - itches, but he's too focused on breathing in and out of his nose to do more than that.

 

Alex finally speaks up about fifteen miles later, when he has his breathing much more under control. Michael can see how he keeps on glancing in the back mirror, even as he asks, “How do you feel?”

 

“Peachy.”

 

“Guerin.”

 

“I’m not bleeding out yet,” Michael says, just a little curt, because relief can only go so far, and he thinks that it’s not only sweat that's making his shoulder slick right now. “So."

 

He’d try to use his powers, now that it feels like whatever had been in his system is fading out - given the growing ache in his shoulder - but he really doesn’t want to be vomiting now, either. He asks, "You don’t have any acetone, do you?”

 

“What?"

  
“It helps with the pain,” Michael says. “Gives us a little more juice.” He gives in, tries to make the car freshener hanging off the rearview mirror rotate a little in the air, regardless, but the thing doesn’t even wiggle the slightest. “Damn it,” he mutters, and Alex looks over to him.

 

“I wouldn’t put it past us to have used some kind of bandage that was dosed in whatever they used to keep your powers in check,” Alex says, more than a little distractedly. His hands tighten on the wheel, visibly, as he quickly merges onto another part of the highway.

 

Michael notes the use of us. While normally, he would appreciate that level of self-awareness from a man whose team was about to do some sick dissection on him, it’s the way that Alex’s lip curls a little at the end of his sentence that makes him take pause. Michael’s powers don’t make him an empath, but he’s not that much of an idiot.

 

Plus, it’s not the first time he’s ruined a moment by talking. Michael steels himself, says, “We should get some things out in the open.”

 

But Alex’s eyes remain glued in front of him. “I’m not going to pretend like me breaking you out is going to make up for anything,” he starts, sounding steady and yet looking far from it as Michael looks at him. “But I didn’t know it was going to be that bad, I swear to you. I’m going to get you back to your siblings, figure out how to get you out of - “

 

“Would you just look at me?” Michael interrupts. “I want to say - "

 

“Please,” Alex says, “Don’t thank me - "

 

“Bold of you to think I’d be thanking you,” Michael interjects, “Your guy shot me, after all.”

 

“My brother, actually,” Alex says, and Michael can't stop his eyebrows from shooting up. The admission just seems to make Alex stiffen even more, though, as his eyes dart once again to all of the mirrors in the car, and most definitely not at Michael. "It turns out alien hunting runs in the family."

 

“Well," Michael says, "I'm glad out of all your family members, you're the one who got the good looks, too." He’s a little gratified to see Alex’s lips twitch at that. He leans forward a little in his seat, as much as he can stand. “I was going to ask you, about your dad.”

 

Alex doesn’t expect that, as he turns his head sharply, looking startled for a split second before catching himself. “I made sure he was far away from the base before we left,” he tells him, “He’s not going to be on the team they’ll send out after us, so he’s not a concern for now - “

 

“You told me once it wasn’t good between the two of you,” Michael says, and he pointedly gestures at the bruise on his face, keeps his voice purposefully even. “He do that to you?”

  
Alex’s eyes remain in front of him. Michael watches him press his lips together, check the mirror yet again. “He hasn’t hit me in years,” Alex says, then, “It’s nothing. Like I said, he’s not a concern.”

 

Michael lets himself have five seconds of fantasy - of lifting Jesse Manes up in the air, maybe hurtling him into space, maybe just letting himself go wild and break every bone in his body, because while he might not deserve a quick death, it means less time that he has to exist in the world. He says, a little roughly, “That’s not nothing, Alex, that’s - “

 

“He’s homophobic and abusive, and he was both when I was growing up, too,” Alex says flatly. “That’s not a revelation if you were wondering how to break it to me. Guess I had just hoped that it had ended with me, that he wouldn’t be overseeing science experiments on living people. Is that what you want me to say?”

 

Michael wishes he could touch him, just do something other than put his foot in his mouth. But he knows better than that, not with the way that Alex’s nostrils flare out, the way he’s holding himself a little too still to be natural. He knows that feeling of helpless rage, that kind of darkness- and it's not one that he knows to help, either.

 

After a nearly unbearable stretch of silence, Michael says, “What I want to know, is are you still gonna think I’m sexy with a scar on my shoulder?”

 

Alex’s mouth twitches yet again. He glances over yet again, for a brief, breathless second - “You fishing for compliments now, Guerin?”

 

“What can I say, I’ve had a hell of a day.” That sluggish feeling grows in him, and Michael resolutely doesn't look down at his injury.“We’re going to get you care for your shoulder,” Alex informs him, the car speeding up. “We’re going to have to lay low. Do you have any way of reaching Max or Isobel, any plans you might have made in case something happened like this?”

 

That quickly erases any pride he had at smoothing out the lines in Alex’s forehead, even briefly. “I’ve never been apart from them,” Michael confesses. The truth of it should render him defensive now, try to build up armor around the weak spot that his voice betrays.“I don’t know where they would’ve gone by now - god, hopefully as far as they could make it.”

 

“It couldn’t have been that far, not with the checkpoints that they’ve set along the state line by now that would limit where they could go,” Alex says, missing the tiniest flinch that Michael can’t stop at his words. “If I had access to the program, I could try to track them again. I have some favors I’ll call in, that’d be well outside of that.” He chews on his lip a little, as if caught in thought.

 

The rest of his body seems to be catching up with the events of the last day or so, but that’s nothing compared to the panic that springs up at the reminder of whatever the military’s been developing to catch them - and that Max and Isobel don’t have him now, that they’re somewhere out there, he’s not there to protect them -

 

“The program,” Michael says, “Could it find us right now?”

 

“It could,” Alex says distractedly, “If anyone could use it. I put in a safeguard before I broke you out, had someone trusted install the software. No one’s going to be able to access it without me, not before I get back and destroy it for good.”

 

“Alex - “

 

“I told you,” Alex says, and he turns so his eyes fall sharply on him. “I’m going to get you back to them, once we get you treated.”

 

The road yawns open in front of them, endless pavement turning to desert in the distance. He should be figuring out how to get away from anyone else, figure it out by himself, but when Alex looks at him like that - well, he’s never done anything too rational with those eyes on him.

 

“And what’s your plan?” Michael asks at last, pressing on, “We can’t just go to a hospital. Our biology is different in some ways, can’t risk someone asking too many questions - “

 

“I know someone,” Alex says firmly. “He’s a doctor. He can meet us there.”

 

“You’re going to tell him about me?”“Not explicitly. I can’t promise he won’t figure it out on his own,” Alex says, “But he’s good people.”

  
“You trust him that much?”

 

“He and I go back,” Alex says, and there’s something a little evasive in the way he says it, an implication there.

 

He knows Alex is a grown man. Alex is a stunning, amazingly intelligent, grown man. Michael is utterly unprepared for the ridiculous jealousy that springs up at the implication of Alex and this mystery guy going back.

  
“Huh,” he says again, aiming for casual, “Old friend, or - ?”

 

Alex's eyebrow raises, as he says without taking his eyes off the road, “You’re not subtle, you know."

 

“I am the epitome of subtle,” Michael argues, and he’s at least rewarded with the full side of Alex’s mouth curling up. “I guess I’ll just have to trust you, too.”

 

He means it as lightly as the first part, but it makes Alex’s mouth tighten all over again. No matter how long Michael lets the silence stretch after that, Alex doesn’t look at him.

 

  
\---

 

  
Michael opens his eyes, not quite having remembered falling asleep, just as Alex pulls up in front of a cabin, the motion of the car waking him up as Alex puts it in park.

 

He thinks it’s a few hours later, given the sun’s descent into the sky, but his vision’s also gone a little hazy since the last time he was awake. Adrenaline’s a bitch, he thinks to himself, any relief having faded into something much closer to pain, radiating from the bullet wound outwards to the rest of his body.

 

Taking the keys out of the ignition, Alex unbuckles his own seatbelt. Now Michael can see the worry on his face, not helping when Michael’s grogginess seems to translate to his movements, too. “Are you okay?”

 

Michael realizes, belatedly, that he’s got a hand curled protectively over his shoulder, hand on his neck, as if on instinct. “Managing,” he says, lowering his arm and wincing. “Is this it?”

  
“Should be,” Alex says. “I called Valenti while you were asleep. He should be here soon with supplies.”

 

Michael focuses on undoing his seat belt, his fingers slipping a little as he manages to do so. “Do you two talk a lot?”

 

Alex shakes his head, a little fondness slipping out over the worry as he says, “Come on. Do you need a hand?”

 

Michael waves him off, but then finds that his vision blacks out a little around the edges when his feet hit the sandy ground. It strikes him that he doesn’t have a clue where they are.

 

To distract himself as he struggles to focus, hand tight on the passenger door, he asks, “Are we still in New Mexico?”

 

“Yeah,” Alex says, having gone around the car with remarkable speed. Now, his hand is firm on Michael’s uninjured arm, supportive without forcing him to move. In the sunlight, Michael can see that his shirt is darker with blood and whatever else, and he knows Alex can see, too. “This was Valenti’s father’s. He gave it to me when he died.”

 

Michael closes his eyes briefly when the nausea swells up in his stomach. "Were you close?" he grits out.

  
“He was the sheriff in town when I was growing up, looked out for all the kids,” Alex tells him, grip tightening a little. "Here, if you can walk - "

 

Michael opens his eyes at last, Alex’s words processing finally. “Wait - we’re in Roswell?”

 

“Nearby,” Alex says, and his head snaps up at something Michael can’t hear. “No one else knows that this is out here, other than Valenti. Speaking of, finally — “

 

Michael registers the sound of a car pulling up, and he fights the urge to duck down. Alex’s thumb rubs up and down the outside of his bicep as the door opens, and a man steps out.

 

Damn it, he’s handsome. Even as he gives the two of them a wary look - or maybe it’s just searching, Michael can see that. Alex steps forward, his hand still on Michael. He raises his voice, then without preamble, “He’s been bleeding from the shoulder, and his temperature has spiked.” Normally, Michael would be annoyed at being spoken for, but he’s so goddamn tired -

 

“Duly noted,” the man says, ducking into the backseat and pulling out a bag. “We’ll talk about how you skipped Thanksgiving and are now just bringing me mystery patients out of the blue later, all right?”

 

“It’s not really my holiday,” Alex says in return, then, “Guerin, this is Kyle Valenti.”

 

Valenti gives Michael a nod, slinging a duffle bag onto his back, a medical kit in his arms. “You were shot?”

 

“Inside,” Alex orders, before Michael can answer. He wonders why the shortness, but then he realizes that he’s been leaning against Alex, and the other man’s been supporting his growing weight- and did it get cold, or is it just him? “Key’s in the cactus pot - Kyle, come on - “

 

Valenti hurries ahead of them, retrieving the key and opening the cabin. Michael, aided by Alex, steps in, and manages to make it to the dusty couch in the center of the room, though it makes him suck in a breath through his nose, the black spots floating in through his vision from the motion.

 

Alex says something, though it sounds muffled, and then there’s a plastic bottle being placed in his hand. There’s a hand then wrapping around his and keeping it steady, and when Michael lifts it up, he smells the sharp, unmistakeable tang of acetone.

 

He forces his eyes open again. Alex nods. Michael gives a sharp look to Valenti, who's busy cutting the shirt off his shoulder, then back to him. Alex just lifts his shoulders ever so slightly, so Michael takes a deep swig of the flask without a word.

  
The acetone helps quickly, as Michael greedily drinks most of it. It clears up his vision, dulls the pain a little, enough so that he can pull himself up a little more on the couch, Alex’s hand falling from his.

 

Alex sits down next to him while Valenti sets down his equipment, pulling out a pair of gloves as he kneels in front of Michael.

 

Michael turns his gaze to wander about the space for a moment. The cabin is small, with what’s probably a bedroom just off the main living space, an open kitchen tucked away in the corner. There’s a couple of intimidatingly tall wood cabinets, an elk head on the wall - a hunting cabin’s not what Michael would have guessed from Alex, but hey, he’s not going to judge.

 

As if he read his mind, Alex says to him, “I haven’t really gotten the chance to redecorate.”

 

“Hunting chic,” Michael says, though it’s more like a croak that he chases with another swig of acetone, “Very classy - shit!“

  
“Just the bandage coming off,” Valenti says, setting it aside and picking up a bottle, plus a needle and syringe. Michael resolutely doesn’t look down at the bullet wound in his shoulder as the doctor continues, “This is a local anesthetic, so I can make sure nothing’s wrong.”

 

Michael eyes the needle, feeling the ghost of the sensation of one plunging in his neck. Alex warns, “Kyle - “

 

“I’m fine,” Michael says, though he stares right at the side of Valenti’s stupidly sharp jaw the entire time as he makes the injection - in his arm, at least - not quite willing to throw his trust in him, no matter what Alex says. “Might not work for too long."

 

“Your tolerance?”

 

“I kind of burn through anesthetic,” Michael says, eyeing the tiny glass bottle. “You don’t have enough there for more than ten minutes or so.”

 

Valenti looks sharply at him, then Alex. "What do you mean?"

 

“Kyle,” Alex says, “Just work fast.”

 

The doctor, to his credit, doesn't waste any more time. He starts to pull out all sorts of medical tools with which to sew Michael up. Alex is no longer holding him, but his presence remains a comfort in the corner of Michael’s vision, from where he’s sitting ramrod-straight, his hands in fists over his knees, watching Valenti just as much.

 

As if he’s ignoring the dual attention, Valenti says, “Is there any particular reason that you’re not headed to a real hospital with this kind of injury?”

 

“Experimental weaponry,” Alex answers easily from beside him. “It was from a classified mission, can’t risk the paperwork leaking.”

 

“Experimental?” Valenti’s eyes stay on where he’s swabbing the wound, cleaning it out. Michael’s arm has gone numb, but the scent of alcohol floods his nostrils, makes him feel hyper-alert even as his body feels like it’s running on fumes at this point. “If there’s something I need to know that could become relevant to treatment - “

 

“Any material left over on the injury site needs to be removed,” Alex informs him. “Any foreign material might impact healing.”

 

“The fragments are all out,” Valenti answers readily, like he’s used to Alex’s brand of directness, “But it does look like they were keeping the wound open. This should keep it closed, though.“

 

The doctor pulls out a needle and thread. Now, Michael forces himself to close his eyes, grits his teeth - he’s already starting to regain feeling in his arm, but it’s the sensation of his skin being pulled that makes him feel nauseated already.

 

Neither Alex nor Valenti say anything for a while, but he can guess there is some strong look-exchanging going on just about then. The doctor then does something that makes pain race up his neck, down to his fingers. The acetone bottle is empty in his hand, and it falls to the ground.

 

Valenti says, “If you’re in pain, I could try to give you - “

 

“No,” Michael says, “Just get it over with.”

 

He moves his good arm, finds the edge of Alex’s leg on the couch as he clutches the fabric under his fingers. There’s a brief pause, before he feels fingers on his wrist - wrapping around ever so slightly, not holding his hand, but there.

 

Alex doesn’t say anything, and Michael keeps his eyes closed, feels the flutter of Alex’s heartbeat through his fingertips, focuses on that sensation.

 

 

  
—-

 

  
After Kyle sews up Michael, he slumps back on the couch, eyelids flickering as if he’s already in a deep sleep. Alex reaches for him immediately, checking his pulse, just as Kyle says, “If he hadn’t passed out by now, I’d be more worried.”

 

“I didn’t know it was that bad.” Alex keeps his eyes on Michael, until he’s the tiniest bit more comforted by the fluttering heartbeat he can feel on the inside of his elbow - fast, but normal for him.

 

“And what about you?” Kyle asks, eyeing him. “Your leg?”

 

It’ll be badly chafed, probably, and he’s going to have to be careful not to put too much strain on it for a while, but it’ll pass. “Fine,” Alex says shortly, “Do I need to be worried about infection for him?”

  
“I’ve got antibiotics here,” Kyle says, taking off his gloves. “And barring any… differences in the way he processes bacteria, he’ll be fine as long, as he takes it easy.”

 

Alex is very careful with the way he nods, not confirming or denying what Kyle’s implying. He hadn’t told Kyle over the phone exactly why he couldn’t take Michael to a hospital, but Kyle’s not stupid. He’s seen the acetone, seen how quickly Michael’s system processes anesthetic. He knows that Alex has been involved in military operations he couldn’t talk about - and he’s probably seen the news, the incidents that the military keeps on blaming on the seemingly magical technologies that have allowed a series of thefts in the southwest. It doesn’t take too much of a conspiracy theorist, knowing what he knows, to put something together.

 

Eventually, he has to let go of Michael. Alex goes and digs through the wardrobe near the door while Kyle cleans up. He finds a slightly dusty blanket to drape over Michael, adjusting it to cover him enough without potentially irritating the wound, then watches his face - tense even in sleep.

 

When he finally looks away from Michael, Kyle is sitting at the narrow kitchen table. He’s got a bottle of whiskey out on the table, with two glasses already poured.

 

“Come on,” Kyle says, jerking his head over, “It’ll be like that time we broke into my dad’s liquor cabinet all over again. This time, I promise not to puke in the bathtub.” He taps the side of the bottle in emphasis.

 

He lets himself smile, resigned. “I can’t,” Alex says, “I need to stay alert.” He should also probably chase Kyle away for his own good - and Michael’s, probably - but the need for someone else to be there outweighs that right now, however selfish it is.

 

Kyle goes from relaxed to tense in an instant, or maybe it’s just been tucked away until now that he can talk to him like this. “Alex,” he says, “What happened, really?”

 

Alex takes the seat opposite him. “I can’t tell you,” he starts, slowly, because it’s only fair to be honest at this point, after what Kyle’s done for him, “For his safety, but for yours as well.”

 

His mouth draws up a little, but Kyle says, “All right. Is it your dad?”

  
  
Alex feels his face tighten ever so slightly. Kyle continues, careful, “If you’re in trouble, if he’s coming - “

 

“Not just him,” Alex says grimly, willing Kyle to drop it. “I really can’t talk about it."

 

Kyle’s just watching him at this point. The fight from today seems to finally catch up with him, now that Michael’s out of direct danger, and he’s sitting down fully. Alex rubs his face, says through his hands, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

 

“No one does,” Kyle says, probably in an attempt to comfort him.

  
“No, I really mean it,” Alex says, “What the fuck did I do?” Now that he’s able to be still, there’s panic growing in him - not regret, not at all. He’ll shoot a thousand men before Michael ends up anywhere near a military facility again, but he hadn’t planned this out. He doesn’t know if the program blocks are going to hold up to whoever they bring in to replace him. He has no plan beyond them hiding for now, no real plan how he’s going to reunite Michael with his siblings, no plan how he’s going to make the military forget about aliens -

 

“Breathe,” Kyle says, and he reaches out to put a hand on Alex’s shoulder, cautious. “Hey - how about you tell me how you met Guerin, ok? He seems like the kind of guy who’d drive you nuts.”

  
Alex lets out a semi-crazed laugh bubble out of him, imagining telling Kyle exactly how he had met Guerin - and then had really met him. Kyle’s brow furrows, but then Alex can finally breathe.

 

“He came up to me,” Alex says, thinking of the way that the viridescent light from the bar had caught the curls of Michael’s hair, back then, “And it just felt like I had met him before. That I knew him from somewhere. And he just - he got under my skin, and he’s been like that ever since.”

 

He thinks if even if he had all the time in the world, he wouldn’t be able to express everything that Guerin makes him feel - let alone try to make it make sense. Kyle just gives him another kind of curious, peculiar look. Alex wishes he could drink right about now, especially when Kyle's not quite looking at Alex. “What?”

 

“Nothing,” Kyle says, the expression evaporating as soon as it had been there, as he busies himself with taking a sip. Exhaling, he says, “You know, you could come back and visit me for more than come sew up my boyfriend, sometimes. Or even mail me a postcard or two.”

 

Alex lets some of the tension bleed from him. He doesn’t have the energy to deny Kyle’s reading of their relationship - though, god, if only it was that simple. “Like Roswell’s Dr. McDreamy would find the time to read a postcard.”

 

“You better hope my mom doesn’t find out that you’re back in town. She loves you more than me, I think, always asking me what you’re up to.”

 

“Well, yeah, I’m not the one who puked in her bathtub,” Alex tosses back and is gratified by Kyle choking on the whiskey.

 

 

  
—-

 

 

  
Michael blinks awake. He’s covered in a blanket, slumped down on some soft surface - the couch, he remembers, though he’s still a little blurry on when exactly he had fallen asleep.

 

He must make some noise, or maybe it’s when he starts to sit up, for then a head appears somewhere above his, upside down from his view.

 

“You’re awake,” the doctor - Valenti says, as Michael squints his eyes, “How are you feeling?”

  
Truth be told, surprisingly well, all considering. “Fine,” Michael grunts, straightening up. “Where’s - “

 

“He told me to tell you to stay put, watch over you,” Valenti tells him, coming around so he can be in front of him, already eyeing him all over. “How’s your shoulder?”

 

“Sore,” Michael says shortly. “Where is he?”

 

“Getting supplies,” Valenti says, “He also told me that you’d be likely to chase after him, so for my sake, please don’t.”

  
It wasn’t like he had immediate plans to run away, but Michael relaxes his grip he hadn’t realized he had had on the blanket. “All right,” he says after a moment, only a little grudgingly. “Don’t you need to - I dunno, be a doctor somewhere?”

 

“I called in late this morning,” Valenti says. “I should check your temperature - “

 

“I’m fine,” Michael repeats, glancing around him. “Listen, I don’t know what Alex threatened you with, but you can go now.”

 

“I like Alex,” Valenti interrupts, “And I like not making Alex angry at me. I don’t know how long you’ve known him, but he isn’t exactly the most love and forget type, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m going to have to insist you do not go running after him this minute. Okay?”

 

It’s not like he’s restraining Michael, but he can see the way that Valenti is now looking at him like he’s entirely ready to tackle him back to the couch, should he try to make a run for it. Plus, what’s the chance that the handsome doctor throwing everything away to go help Alex has some ulterior motives? Michael has to hand it to Alex - not only does he have Michael twisted all up over him, but it also looks like he’s got Valenti on the hook, too.

 

He tamps down that thought just as fast as it had come up, though - no time for jealousy, not now. Michael throws back, “You gonna babysit me in the bathroom, too? I have to piss like a racehorse.” He can see if there’s a window in there, big enough -

 

Valenti snorts. “It's all yours. As long as you don’t brain yourself on the towel rack, then Alex would really kill me.”

 

It’s not entirely an impossible situation, so Michael sits back. “You really like him, huh,” he says after a moment, emphasis on the word just a little childish. The doctor just blinks straight back at him, though.

 

“Listen,” Valenti says, “You don’t go running off the minute I turn my back, and I’ll see if I can dig up any photos of Alex in high school for you. How about that?"

 

The urge to scoff is conquered by the fact that yes, he would. “Let me guess - he owned a skateboard, had awful frosted tips or something?"

 

“Better,” Valenti says, leaning in conspiratorially. Maybe he’s not so bad, after all, Michael thinks, as he sits up better to meet him in the middle as the doctor’s already pulling out his phone. “Huge nose piercing. He wore lots of eyeliner, had thumbholes in his sleeves, the whole nine yards.”

 

Michael feels something open, wide and fond in his chest, despite himself. “Photos, or it didn’t happen."

 

 

 

—-

 

 

Alex comes back, and Kyle and Michael are laughing together on the couch.

 

He takes this in, for a moment, setting down the bags, only somewhat wondering if this is some strange fever dream that takes the people you know from very different places and throws them together. “Having a good time?”

 

“Alex!” Michael exclaims, catching his eyes over Kyle’s shoulder, a wide, easy grin on his face. Something in Alex’s stomach swoops, as he says, “Did your eyebrow piercing close up, or can you still put it in?”

 

“ _Kyle_!”

 

“I had to keep him occupied,” Kyle says, looking unrepentant as he turns, too. He’s got his phone out, and Alex doesn’t have to look at the screen to guess exactly which - “Even found a photo of the pink hair, here, look - “

 

Michael looks, and Alex resists the urge to just leave again. “Now, were you more of a punk rocker or an emo crooner? I could see both, honestly - “

 

“Those are photoshopped,” Alex interjects, “I’m a hacker, I would know - "

 

“Sure,” Michael says, “Just, I didn’t know you wanted to wanted to be a rock star."

 

“I have some bottled water out in the car,” Alex says instead. “Supplies. Kyle, if you could - ?"

  
“Nice try. I actually have to get going,” Kyle says, mercifully for Alex. “Call me if anything comes up, all right?”

 

Alex watches as Kyle actually slaps Michael’s thigh before getting up, disappearing through the open door behind him. He should probably go out there, thank him or otherwise say something - but instead, he turns back to Michael.

 

“How are you doing?” he asks, looking at him. Michael's color is much closer to normal, and the visible bandages are clean and fresh, nothing leaking through that he can see.

  
“Significantly better, now that I saw those photos,” Michael says, getting up. It doesn’t escape Alex’s attention that he has a little difficulty getting up, although he manages to keep his own weight upright this time, leaning on the side of the couch, keeping the blanket loosely over his shoulders. “You know, you never told me you grew up in Roswell. Do you - still live here?”

 

“I don’t really have a home,” Alex says, because it’s the truth, though he hates how - maudlin it sounds, closing the front door. “Chasing you kept me busy, you know.”

 

“So your family was from around here, or - ?”

  
If it was anyone else asking, Alex would be suspicious. But it’s Michael, and he owes him some truth, be it strange relics from the past that he hasn’t considered in a long time. "My grandfather worked at the Walker base,” Alex answers. “My father stayed here to raise us. We all went to school here, until we enlisted."

  
It’s clear that Michael can’t hide the grimace that goes across his face when Alex brings up his father, but that’s to be expected. “You don’t talk about your mother,” he says instead, though. “Was she from Roswell, too?”

 

“No, she was only ever here because of my father,” Alex says. “I haven’t seen her in twenty years.”

 

He doesn’t like to think about her, much. It’s not as easy as blaming her for leaving, leaving him behind, and not as complicated as anything other than one day she had been there, the next, she was gone. Michael seems to take this in, as Alex busies himself with picking the bags up again, bringing them to the counter and taking the items out. The order brings him some small amount of focus, some task for his hands so that he doesn’t have to stand there in some awkward silence.

 

“We came from the desert out here,” Michael offers, as Alex sets down the new bottle of acetone. “Didn’t stay long, of course."

 

Alex half-smiles, or attempts to. “I know,” he says. “I knew my father was interested in the crash of ’47 long before he recruited me to his task force.”

 

“Ah,” Michael says, sounding remarkably at ease with this. “So you do know you’ve slept with a seventy-two year old alien.”

 

“You’ve aged well, Guerin.” Alex says it before he can think, and stills. It’s easy being around Michael, despite everything, that he forgets that they haven’t had the chance to be like this. Have something other than sex or fighting - that for all that they know about each other, they really haven’t done much talking.

 

He wonders how many people can say that. I broke you out of a military facility before I learned what your favorite color was, he thinks. And he does, he wants to know everything -

 

“We had pods,” Michael says suddenly, and Alex turns to face him. He’s fiddling with the end of the blanket, but glances back at Alex when he feels his eyes on him. “We came out in 1997. Don’t know if the crash broke them or not, if they were supposed to keep us in, or maybe delayed us even more.”

 

He recalls the crash site data he’s seen, the soil samples taken from there - and the inexplicable substances they found, too. “That explains the residue the army found,” Alex says. “We’re still trying to figure out the compounds in that, you know."

 

“That’s what the ship is made out of,” Michael cuts in. Something’s changed, or maybe Alex hadn’t picked up on the nervous energy until now. He doesn't realize Michael's in the process of making some decision, until his face seems to take on a resolute expression, as he says, “Alex - it’s here.”

 

He’s careful not to jump to any assumptions, but fears the worst anyways. “What is?”

 

“The ship we’ve been building,” Michael says. His mouth closes with an audible click, and he swallows before he continues, “I didn’t tell you before. But we have a safe house out here, where we keep the pieces.”

 

If Michael expects him to get angry, he won’t find it here. Not after everything. Alex says, “Would Max and Isobel be there?”

 

“Hopefully not,” Michael says. “If they had any sense, they would have managed to be in Mexico by now. But there are safeguards there. We might be safer - no one would expect actual aliens to be in Roswell, right?”

 

The gesture is not lost on him. Michael is trusting him, letting him in not only to this place, where it’s likely only he and his siblings have been, but he’s telling Alex about it. Trusting, even, willing to share this with him, if it means that they might be able to stay safe.

 

What if he can’t protect Michael from what comes next? What if Michael has that faith in him - faith that Alex cannot protect, either?

 

He doesn’t realize that he’s been caught in his own thoughts, not until Michael prompts, “Alex?” That tension is still running through him, like he’s expecting Alex to snap, instead. He’s not sure if Michael is the smartest person he’s ever known, or the dumbest, for trusting him so implicitly, like it’s natural to forgive and forget -

 

Michael’s quirked eyebrow doesn’t escape his notice. Forcing himself to abandon such thoughts, for now, Alex asks, “How far is it?”

  
“Maybe an hour out of town, out in the desert,” Michael says. “I could get us there, I think.”

 

It’s - something. Not an entire plan, but more than he can come up with, now. “Once you regain your powers, we’ll go,” Alex says. “If anyone runs my plates, they’re going to get a hit in the system, and the place will be crawling with soldiers. I might need - “ and he hesitates, for a moment, “Your assistance.”

 

Michael lifts his eyebrows, fully. Alex feels his dog tags lift underneath his shirt, rising until they’re out, floating in the air and brushing the underside of chin. “Like I said,” he says, “Significantly better. I guess once your doctor sewed me up, I could heal again.”

 

Alex reaches up, touches the warm metal. They droop in his fingers just as soon as Michael had lifted him, and he wonders how much of it is his own body heat, versus the invisible touch from Michael. He thumbs the edge of it.

 

Michael just keeps looking at him.

 

He says, “I’ll pack the car again. We should leave at night."

 

“Guess that means a lot of down time,” Michael replies. That smirk is back on his face, although now it’s just the two of them, Alex feels like he can’t drag his eyes away - or worse, he’ll do something dumb, like get closer.

 

Alex turns away. “Take some of the antibiotics,” he directs. “I’ll be back,” and he resolutely doesn’t look at Michael, less he do - or worse yet, say something that he can't. Not now.

 

Not one bit.

 

 

  
—-

 

  
When Alex disappears, Michael’s not sure what to do with himself. He takes the antibiotics, tries to tune the old-fashioned television with the rabbit ears across the room - to little avail.

 

He pokes around the cabin, finds a dresser with some clothes. He steals a shirt, because he supposes he can't forever wear a blanket.

 

In the bathroom, though he honestly doesn’t have the energy in him to take a shower, he washes his face with some of the soap there, running a wet hand through his hair. The mirror greets him with the harsh truth of the circles under his eyes, the bruise creeping up from under the neckline of his shirt.

 

When he's done, Michael goes back to the living room, and with some very controlled, very specialized alien finagling, he gets the television to work by hitting the top of it repeatedly. A little more satisfied, he settles down to wait for Alex to return, the audience laughter bubbling up occasionally on whatever comedy show he tuned up doing little to distract him, still.

 

He doesn't let himself think about Max and Isobel. If he worries, he's going to do something drastic, and he had promised Alex. They're in this together, he realizes now - if Alex's father and whoever comes upon them, Alex is going to need him. For all the badass fighting moves that he's witnessed from him, there's only one of them who can deflect bullets, after all.

 

Eventually, Alex returns, the door opening without any footsteps precluding it. Michael's eyes fly open fully. "Everything alright?"Alex's boots are covered in sand, and he's carrying a box.

 

"It's ammunition," he answers without Michael voicing his question out loud, "And another gun."

 

Michael blinks. "What - did you dig that up?"

 

"It was for emergencies," Alex says, then, "I'm going to get some sleep before we go," and he moves too quickly into the spare bedroom for Michael to say anything, let alone react.

 

 

  
\---

 

 

Late into the evening, Michael is kept awake by the sound of static. It’s no quantifiable noise, but the conspicuous absence of something. 

 

He’s had it since they took him away from Michael and Isobel, the feeling of the lack of their presence nearly like an ache between his ears, harsher the more he thinks about it. Eventually, he focuses on the sensations around him - the couch under him, the pillow creasing under his face, the itchy blanket over him, the cool air from the drafty window across the cabin.

 

He’s half-asleep, rolling over on the couch and hitting the pillow in an attempt to best slip back under when he hears it. There’s some low, quiet sound - nearly nothing, but then another, higher sound like a whimper.

 

Michael knocks on the door. “Alex?”

  
Nothing. Then another, smaller sound - and Michael decides to risk it. He twists the lock with his mind until the door’s swinging open.

  
He’s not prepared for the figure in the bed to jolt upright, as Michael says fast, “Alex - it’s me,” before he can get shot again or something, fumbling around the wall until he finds a switch.

 

The room is flooded with light. It works, luckily, and he can hear the hitch in Alex’s breath from across the room. “Jesus,” Alex says, lifting his arm and probably running a hand over his face or something. “Did I wake you?”

 

“Not really,” Michael says. “Are you okay?”

 

“Bad dream,” Alex says, moving his legs to the side - making space for Michael next to him on the mattress. Michael carefully sits on the bed, swinging his feet over, as Alex reaches down to the end of his leg, rubbing where the prosthetic must attach.

 

“You want to talk about it?” Michael asks, after a beat. The light flickers above them.

 

"Not really,” Alex says. "Sorry."

 

  
“Don’t apologize.” The silence stretches out, impossibly, as Alex massages the joint. "Is your leg bothering you?"

 

"It's been better," Alex says. "It'll be fine."

 

Michael considers just leaving. It's clear Alex doesn't want to talk about it - and Michael gets it, he really does - but once again, there's that feeling again, something swelling up that he doesn't want to just push away. The light flickers again, and Alex looks up at it from beside him. Michael's eyes fall on the bruise on his jaw, then, now purpling, spreading out a little beneath his skin.

 

“I want to try something,” Michael says before he fully thinks it through. Alex turns his head, as Michael slowly twists - ready to back off in a moment's notice - now kneeling to his side. He nods to Alex's jaw.

  
Alex keeps his eyes on his. "What is it?"

 

“Can I try something?” Michael asks, raising his hand until his fingers are a few inches away from the bruise. After a moment, Alex nods, and Michael brings his hand even closer, the tips of his fingers curling underneath Alex's jaw, brushing against slight stubble. Alex inhales, ever so slightly, at the touch.

 

At first, he thinks nothing’s going to happen. Maybe he needs to be in a life-or-death situation, or something - but then his fingertips start to glow.

 

The light travels down his fingers, to the backs of his hands, illuminating Alex’s face in the soft yellow light. Alex moves his jaw, maybe to gasp, but Michael concentrates. He touches Alex’s face fully, then, feels his skin through his palm, until he can feel Alex's muscles work under his touch. He wills the energy to move closer, pass through him and onto his skin, to rebuild -

 

Then as quickly as it appeared, the glowing goes away. The lightbulb pops, suddenly, and they’re cast into darkness. Alex startles, a little belatedly, and Michael can feel him swallow, from this proximity. 

 

He can’t see Alex’s face, but then he's moving away - and Michael resists the urge to follow him with his hand, to seek him out in the dark - before turning on the lamp on top of his nightstand.

 

It's not much, but the light shows Alex’s face, now unblemished. Michael reaches out once again, as Alex leans back before he can help himself.

 

Alex raises his own fingers, bypassing Michael’s hand to touch his face. “It's not sore anymore," he says, with more than a little wonder - or something else, maybe. 

 

"The bruise is gone,” Michael tells him, hurried - maybe he’s overstepped, as he starts to hear himself babble - “We figured out that with enough focus, we could each start to adapt other powers - nothing major yet, Iz thought that maybe if there was the motivation, we could each do more, and I thought maybe I could. You know - '

 

“Well,” Alex says, and there’s the tiniest hint of a smile on his face, “You did end up with the coolest power, I think, so it makes sense that your siblings would want it too.”

 

Michael huffs, starting to pull his hand away. But Alex catches it, ever so gently, and he squeezes his fingertips ever so slightly, before sliding his hand to his wrist. Then he’s pressing a light kiss on Michael’s fingers, each of them, and Michael exhales shakily before he can help himself. "Thank you," he says.

 

He expects Alex to let go. But keeping his eyes on Michael, Alex opens his mouth ever so slightly. Michael's fingertips slide along the seam of his lip, pressing in ever so slightly - and Michael can just barely feel the heat of Alex’s mouth, the unbearable longing that comes with the sensation beyond his hand, shaking through him nearly violently - God, he thinks he’d die before he would stop wanting him.

 

Yet it's like he's touched a flame, and while Michael can't stop seeking out the light, he flinches away from the heat.

 

In turn, Alex feels it, jerks his head back. They're left staring at each other, Michael suddenly aware of how easy it would be to swing his leg over Alex's lap, press them together, and it hurts him as much as if he had touched an actual flame -

 

"We should get more sleep," Alex says, though. His eyes are still fixed on Michael, his fingers left midair. "We'll have to go, soon."

 

He nods, once, unable to speak or fully let out the breath trapped somewhere high in his chest. Michael shifts his weight back, getting ready to leave, but then Alex catches just one of his fingers in his hand. "Michael," he says, and Michael doesn't think he's ever heard his name said like that, before.

 

So he lays down on the too-small bed, careful not to touch Alex, but ends up curled on his side, facing him. Alex falls asleep without turning off the light, and Michael stares at the dark curl of his eyelashes, above the flat skin of his cheekbone, before he reaches out with his powers, turning off the lamp, and plunging them into the dark, once again.

 

 

 

—-

 

 

 

They set out to the safe house early the next morning, long before dawn. Michael’s not sure what to expect, with the way that Alex is a line of rigidity, driving with a look on his face of the severity of someone expecting to be shot at any moment.

  
Well, maybe that’s not too far off the mark. But Michael was able to levitate several coffee cups again this morning, practicing while Alex was loading the car, so he has at least a little hope that he'll be able to fight, should it come to that - barring the military developing a whole bunch of those alien killer guns in the past twenty-four hours, and getting them to Alex’s psychopath family.

 

Which is, again, not too far off as a possibility. His luck could probably run that bad, after all.

 

Michael’s able to pick up some landmarks once they get closer to Roswell, and they duck around the city, driving into the desert before long, toward the house. Maybe his luck really is improving. 

 

It looks the same as it had been a few days ago, the shutters still pulled shut as the sun rises in the distance. Pulling up in front of the ranch house, Michael peers out the windshield. “Home sweet home,” he says. “Guess I’m glad that there isn’t a SWAT van out front.”

 

“They’d be lying in wait behind the house, most likely,” Alex says, rather mildly from beside him. He looks like he’s finally starting to relax. “No sense in starting a car chase. But I doubt they knew to come out here.”

 

As they get out of the car, Michael uses his powers to levitate the concrete block to the side of the house, pulling up the key they keep there. “The windows are bulletproof glass,” he says, “This thing is off the grid, too - “

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex makes some bizarre movement. He can’t put his finger on it, but it makes Michael turn toward him suddenly. “Alex?”

 

Alex’s eyes are strangely flat, his arms still at his sides like he’s pinned there. Michael gapes for a moment before he realizes - and he turns back to the house. “Isobel! Max!”

 

The garage door opens, and Michael steps forward on instinct. “She’s got him,” Max says, emerging from the darkened garage, another figure on the ground behind him. His eyes are on Alex, though. “We saw just your car, how many more are coming?”

 

“It’s just us,” Michael says quickly, glancing between him and Alex, “You can stop, he’s the one who got me out.”

  
Max blinks but turns behind him. He must use their twin connection or something, for Isobel - sitting on the ground, shielded from his view until Max had stepped away - suddenly shakes her head, unfolding her legs and getting up fast, her eyes still trained on Alex.

 

That is, until she registers Michael standing there in the driveway, and she makes some sound, rushing toward him. “You goddamn idiot,” Isobel says in a half-sob, pushing by Max so she can throw her arms around him. “Michael Guerin, I’m going to _kill you myself_!"

 

“Ow, careful - “ Michael says, wincing when Max comes around the other side of her, hugging him just as tightly. “You didn’t wipe Alex’s mind or anything, did you?”

  
“No,” Isobel says, dragging her hand over damp eyes - and to her credit, Max is also making half-hitched sounds, probably trying not to sound like he’s tearing up and failing. God, he’s missed them, Michael thinks, finally feeling them on the edge of his mind again, that full feeling of peace washing over him. 

 

Behind him, he can hear Alex clear his throat. “We should probably go inside,” he says, sounding like he’s gotten over getting mind-whammies with remarkable grace, “Just in case we did get followed."

  
“Alex broke me out,” Michael tells them, letting them go just enough so he can see their faces, but not anymore. “He’s with me, all right?”

 

Isobel and Max both search his face, see whatever he wills them to understand. “Okay,” Max says, “Iz, you get the car.”

 

 

  
\---

 

 

  
Inside, Michael realizes that if he thinks he’s spent surprisingly little time with Alex, all considering, that’s nothing compared to how little time he’s spent with Max and Isobel - beyond chance encounters in bank heists. Alex pointing guns at any of them, or threatening to put them in prison. 

 

In other words, they might have let Alex in, but they sure don’t trust him.

 

His siblings are at the kitchen island counter, both sitting on tall stools and leveling largely unimpressed looks at Alex. They’ve kept the shutters drawn on the front of the house, so it’s doesn’t help that there are the overhead lights that cast dark shadows on their faces, like some cliche interrogation. Very tasteful, handblown glass lights, but still.

 

Alex, to his credit, seems relatively unfazed, though he keeps on stealing glances at Michael like he’s taking cues from him now.

 

And Michael? Michael’s not sure what the etiquette is here, but he’s never been one for proper behavior.

 

He starts with, “You can trust him. He got me out of the base they took me to.”

  
Max frowns. “You mean a military base?"

 

Isobel asks at the same time, "Why did they take you there?”

 

“Probably to keep me in,” Michael says. He’s electing to skip over the parts of the imprisonment and nearly science experiment. “The bullets in those guns, I couldn’t stop them. They’ve managed to make some kind of material to keep us trapped, but Alex blew up an exit to get me out of there.”

 

Max doesn’t say anything to that, but Isobel narrows her eyes at him. “Why?”

 

Michael feels a little indignant on Alex’s behalf, truth be told. “Uh, maybe because he's a rational person who didn't want to see me get cut open?"

  
“He’s the one who got you shot,” Isobel says curtly, “Plus, you’re kind of biased when it comes to him, so I’m going to need some explanation as to why he’d risk so much to get you out.”

 

Isobel is saved from his response by Alex putting his hand on the small of Michael's back, making him stop pre-retort. “It's fine,” Alex says calmly, to him, “Your sister has every right to be suspicious. But she’s also been in my head, so I would hope that she would see that there isn’t some hidden agenda here.”

 

If anything, Isobel narrows her eyes even farther. “I don’t know that the military hasn’t given you some kind of training,” she says, “Maybe to resist interrogation if it affects my ability to get a straight answer from you - “

 

“Iz, come on!”

 

“You could just ask me,” Alex says evenly. “In or outside my head. Whatever you need to be convinced.”

 

“No,” Michael says, then repeats to his sister, “Iz. If not him, trust me, all right?”

 

Max speaks up, “Michael, he was trying to hunt us down not even a few days ago, or did you forget?“

 

“And it’s changed,” Michael says. He doesn’t look at Alex, even though he desperately wants to. “All right? The military’s going to come after him just as much, now.”

 

Max swears. Isobel says, “Really, Michael? So you brought him _here_?”

 

“Michael was shot,” Alex says then, and now Michael gapes at him, as Isobel makes some noise. Traitor. “He needs somewhere to recover, even if he looks fine. And I knew he needed to be reunited with you two."

 

Max and Isobel exchange a look that doesn’t bode well, but for him, now. Michael tries, “I told you, the wound is healing - “

  
“We don’t know what was in that bullet that was left in your bloodstream,” Alex points out. “You’ve not used your powers strenuously, yet, and we need to make sure there are no side effects. We can’t risk getting caught, especially if you’re not recovered.”

 

“He’s right,” Max says, exchanging a last, resolute look with Isobel. “We can get a doctor here, someone we can pay to keep quiet - “

 

“Alex knows one,” Michael says. “He checked me out, and we’d know by now if he ratted us out.”

 

Now it’s Max’s turn to scowl. “So there’s someone else who knows about us?”

 

“You suggested the same thing!”

  
“Someone we could choose ourselves,” Max says pointedly, “Someone Isobel can make sure isn’t going to turn us in - honestly, Michael - “

 

“Kyle isn’t going to say anything,” Alex interrupts. “And I wasn’t going to have Michael die of - blood poisoning, if that could be a thing - "

 

"And what would have you done, exactly?" Isobel throws back.

  
"Okay," Michael says, cutting them both off, "Alex and I have been fully prepared to be executed this morning on the drive over. I need a nap, and he needs to recover from you taking him out. Then we can talk about our next steps, all right?"

  
"Guerin, I'm fine - "

  
"Trust me," Michael says, low, to him, then turns back to his siblings. "You've opened the whole place up?"

 

Max, at least, seems to be on board, nodding. "We figured out your system," he says, "The bunker's up, if you want to stay down there. Iz took the main room up here, and I'm in the guest bedroom."

 

Alex says, "There's a bunker?"

 

"Baby," Michael says, "Of _course_ we have a bunker."

 

 

  
—-

 

  
In the bathroom, Alex watches as Michael opens the mirrored cabinet, prying away a keypad and punching in a series of numbers. Then it happens. 

 

"I really thought you were kidding," Alex says, a little faintly, as the entire shower swivels in place, revealing a ladder extending into what Alex just thought was the ground. There's a hum of electronics all around them, as he realizes that this is no dug pit underneath the basement.

 

"Oh, I am a man of great depths," Michael says easily, "And mystique. This you know."

 

"I mean, I knew you stole things," Alex says, watching as the ladder rises to meet them. "But this? This is - well, it's - "

  
"Super villain-y? We did rob many banks, you know."

 

"But you - you designed this?"

 

"Well," Michael says, "I had a little help. Turns out lots of wealthy people have hideaways like this, and I got the schematics from some. I've put bunkers into most of our houses."

 

"Exactly how many places do you have?"

 

"Oh, an average number for your average alien billionaire," Michael says, rather breezily. "Can your leg take the ladder now?"

 

" _Billionaires_?"

 

"It's in mostly offshore accounts," Michael admits, climbing on the ladder first. "Iz can read minds, I mean - she was really into these high-end casinos when she was twenty, you know, nearly won as much in poker as she stole. And when the mob's after you, you have to take some measures... "

 

He trails off when he sees Alex's incredulous expression. "Hang on, why are you so surprised? You had a file on us, didn't you?"

 

"I didn't know it was that much," Alex tells him, "I thought - ugh. Never mind."

 

But it's too late. "Alex Manes," Michael says, a grin slowly growing, "Are you wowed by the size of my wealth? Stupended by my savings?"

 

"Guerin, so help me, I will push you into your own bunker."

 

"Just wait," Michael says, "You are gonna  _love_ the computer setup I've got down there, you nerd." 

 

"Awfully hypocritical of you to say that, isn't it?"

 

"Hey," Michael says, "Be nice. I'm not even going to make you guess the super-secret password to get in."

 

"Something dirty, undoubtedly."

   
"You know me too well." Michael starts to go down the ladder, and he reaches his hand to Alex. After a moment, Alex takes it. 

 

 

  
\---

 


End file.
